RAHJAILARI

Oh the French BB potato madness about to be unleashed on us on 9th Feb... Beee ready!

My choice for BOTH the most AND also the least fun ship is undeniably the same ship: The One, the only, the unfathomable! MIGHTY MIKASA! (also known amongst fans, friends and supporters, as the "Mighty MI") Well, just because basically is sucks wholesale: The maximum effective range is 3,8km and the main guns which exceed that cannot hit a barn even if you are inside it and the doors locked. It is painfully slow, horrifyingly cumbersome, totally in-concealable (11,5km concealment in an 11km map) and has a rather annoying tendency to catch fire. This overall combination of superior firepower, speed and stealth - None of which it, rather confusingly has, still occasionally nevertheless somehow contrive to produce the most unlikely of results. Your success will depend entirely on whether or not you manage to sneak up on your tier 3 (yes, you will quite invariably end up in tier 3 games with this tier 2 ship, it is called "favorable matchmaking") enemies UNDETECTED until your awesome effective range of 3km and on the hope that no-one in the opposing team will know or realize this... BUT, when you succeed...

WOOT?! people being stupid in WoWs? Oh Dear God! Never Good Sir, I tell you. This outrage could simply not be possible.

So when is this calamity taking place BTW? In the next update or sometime after that? Just so I know to take my Shima out for a spin, you know...

Fair enough. I should be safe then, since I don't use any mods. Hehehe! Well, to be honest, it might be because don't really know how to anyways and too much trouble to update them every time the game gets updated eh?

Yeah, count me in too. Hehe! As for WG and the Russian navy representation in Wows... Well:

Hhehehe! @Major_Damage225 I got her too and she IS a tricky ship to play. BUT she can be a beast with those guns and you will be able to citadel any Cruiser you face easily regardless of tier and the torps are good with decent range. Though because of paltry armor it is hard to keep alive long enough to do damage sometimes (slow reload is a problem). She is definitely no DD hunter (her secondaries are surprisingly effective against DD tho) so stay away from DD, if possible also lack of speed is a problem, if you need to get away from something. That said, I did manage to kill 3 DD's in one game recently, but that was only because they totally potato'd their game and all their torps missed at close range (I have no idea how that happened) giving me enough time to load HE and let my secondaries incapacitate them so I was able to hit with main guns. It was obviously a sheer panic situation (bumping into 3 DD's), avoid those. But I love freaks, so I keep her and play her too, same with Mikasa. It does not always go well... BUT

Graf Spee has armor? Hehehe! Just kidding BUT I have citadelled it while in a Gaede...

@Annibale19ITA my friend. Seriously dude, while it is a commendable effort and good that you try to practice your English - For the Love of God and all that's Holy - You have to stop just using Google Translator or Babelfish or whatever it is and get someone, who has good English skills to proofread your posts beforehand. It is really difficult to understand, what you want to say so you will just get trolled to death every time and the whole thread will soon become pointless and not very productive - Especially, if complaining about something. However, as for the actual (or presumed?) topic of the Regia Marina being under-represented in Wows. I fully agree, I also would like to see some of those ships ASAP.. Even 1 ship line first, pretty please? Not just premiums but tech tree ships. Italian navy was powerful and had many excellent and interesting ships - Eventhough it was often(or most)times grossly mismanaged, but that is another issue entirely. it was without a doubt one of the great navies of the era and should be represented in any WW2 naval game. But then again WG had to start somewhere so they picked IJN and USN first and are going on from there, so I have no doubts that the Regia Marina is also on the list, it will just take some more time, that's all. I know patience may not be the greatest of All-Italian basic virtues but we must still have some for a little while longer.

Yeeah, but of course if one suffers from such strong feelings of fear and aversion to fighting there is always the Farming Simulator or something...

Yeah, I get that @Fat_Maniac BUT... I mean when it happens almost immediately and sometimes even before any enemy has been spotted anywhere on the map. Including near the flank we were going to, it makes no sense to me whatsoever. It kinda feels like a troll.. "Haha" Now we got the dumb DD going that way, let's all turn around."-kinda thing.

OR common sense perhaps?

True dat @ColonelPete. Usually there are many, if you just F3 a cap or point a priority target or some such. That kinda works. Problem is tho that even if we decided right in the beginning of the battle, that we should go A+B and everyone starts up heading into that direction... So myself in a DD would by now be going for A full tilt and suddenly discover a few minutes later that every single ship (including the bozzo, who suggested A in the first place) has made a complete U-turn and are now instead heading to the opposite direction (C) full steam leaving me alone without backup. So I either Yolo it or turn around and follow, in which case I will naturally be blamed for "not capping" the blasted A.

Yeah, some of my friends have that exact problem also "I can only play the left side of this map or it always goes badly, when I go right or some such utter Bullsh*t". I am trying to ween them out of it tho, always reminding the guys that they cannot hope to become decent players, if they cannot adapt and play the entire map instead of just one effin' corner of it. Oh well, still a work in progress.

Yeah @philjd I always find it rather bizarre, that WG should focus on WW2 era only, considering they have access to an ample supply of Russian navy designs and ships which are mainly of earlier era and quite obviously also have the motivation to display them in game. Considering that they have the desire to employ more Russian ships and designs, it would have made perfect sense to expand the focus to include a larger time-scale which would enable that to happen more easily than just adding a multitude of tier 2-5 premiums or some such. Shooting themselves slightly in the foot perhaps?

Yeah, I guess WG kinda screwed up, when deciding on the tier structure for WoWs and put focus mainly on WW2 era. Russia had a large and varied navy all the way from pre-dreadnought era to WW1 but not much since the revolution and so since the game is focused on WW2 era ships a treasure-trove of excellent and interesting ships and designs will be left out (and not only Russian ships, but many others as well). Perhaps if they had made it into 15 tiers, starting from 1890's or some such they would have been able to include much more interesting stuff. Including being able to cover more of the WW1 era Dreadnoughts and Battlecruisers. Sadly in its current form we will be stuck with an abundance of paper-ships such as the upcoming Stalingrad and sh*tloads of random premiums instead.

Yupp, of course Herr. @ColonelPete you are absolutely right there. Whenever a Cruiser of a BB has to go capping, it is usually a sign that thing have already gone horribly wrong. But then again it is very situational, if there are no DD's left or none in your corner of the map (especially the enemy's) then it is occasionally feasible and the stealthiest available ship should try it instead. But yeah, it depends entirely on where the enemy BB's are at the time because if you get spotted in the middle of that foolishness, you will get blapped on the spot (unless in an RN Cruiser with smoke). I was actually in a game recently, where a division mate of mine actually capped all 3 caps (Hot Spot map) with a Bismarck (naturally I assisted) because all our team's DD Yolo'd off to somewhere, got killed instantly and accomplished nothing. So yeah, an emergency measure for sure.

Yeah @Jethro_Grey, though it (going D in Northern Lights) sometimes works, though you need FAST BB's and only a limited number, not the entire bloody half of the team like what sometimes happens. Generally going D is best left to a sole DD (a fast one, Russian DD's are good for this), who would then immediately double back to cap C while the supporting group engages the enemy there to make sure they can't cap it meanwhile. All that said, I did once cap it in Mogami (with a speed flag), since we had no DD on that side of the map and then doubled back to C cap from between the islands, since it looked like the enemy was going all A and B. That worked out nicely but of course, like everything it is purely situational and the outcome totally depends on the overall situation and what the enemy is doing.

Now that IS a very good question. Personally I have always just presumed pervasive idiocy or total and complete Noobism, especially when it happens in higher tiers. With a faster ship and so on, it might still be feasible to pull it off though. And sometimes there is indeed a valid tactical reason. For example, if the other side has no DD to scout for them or is lacking any Cruiser or BB support and other such compelling reasons. However I often see quite inexplicable movements like that with ships on the left going right and the right wing going left (then resulting in a huge traffic jam in the middle). Those games are usually lost within minutes. Unless, of course, the enemy is even more stupid than we are. One classical example I particularly detest would be a Colorado or a New Mexico going border hugging across the map because it is a total speedboat and will easily make it to anywhere it is needed on a moment's notice. Hehehe!

Ssoooo does that mean she can deploy both smoke and TRB now?

That's a good comparison actually, I should have thought of that - She DOES play very much like Atago now that I come to think of it, except for the torp angles of course. Good point there good Sir. Well, I just got an Atago myself quite recently so I actually got to Ibuki first.

So what do you mean @Bellegar? Is it an African Swallow or a European Swallow?

@wilkatis_LV is absolutely right. With a low tier CV's you should not waste your time trying to torp DD's or even some of the more agile Cruisers. It will be extremely difficult and frustratingly they can still dodge all of them. You have to practice the art of Cross-dropping (not dressing, mind you). So what this means is that you prepare an ambush for passing ships. Placing one of your squadrons in position on the left side of the path of oncoming ship(s) and the other squadron on the right, about an equal distance away from their projected course. And when an enemy ship reaches your pre-determined attack launch point some 5-6km away almost in-between your bombers - Not directly, launch your attack when incoming enemy is some 3-4 km ahead (45degree angle against an oncoming enemy is good so you can still adjust if they start maneuvering). Then launch both your squadrons against the same target at the same time. They will then ideally launch their torps in a 90 degree from each other so no matter which way the victim tries to turn, he IS gonna hit a few. After the deed is done, reload and repeat. Avoid trying to torp ships directly from the front or behind, they will be able to easily avoid all your torps, always maneuver to the side and cross-drop from 2 sides.

The chief issue is actually not so much the ship itself. The issue is that as a tier 9, you get the awesome privilege of playing in wide open maps with no cover lots more than before and that's where the problems begin... Rate of fire is about the same than Mogami's own 203mm guns but lemme guess, you had the 155's eh? Smaller guns will, of course fire faster. I guess the main thing to remember with Ibuki, is that generally you have to keep your distance. So you have to get used to long range gunfire and use that range to your best advantage. You can still go close and use torps, but due to the open maps-thingy those opportunities will be fewer.

True all dat, but anyways, the outcome will be the same with the Mogami too. So just play it like you would a Mogami and it will be OK.