I think using HE for everything will get you a consistent damage rate and score if you are credit crunching in your premium ships.
Against Battleships - Use HE at distance and AP when you are closer and can actually aim at a spot.
This game is far more complicated than WoT. I have played all ships types up to Tier 7. The BB are way too slow and have to sit at back sniping. The Kongo can't hit nothing at 21 km, as soon as enemy sees shells heading his way from 21 km away he simply turns slightly to avoid being hit and and as for turret aiming/turning, at close quarters you never seem to have a loaded turret pointing in right direction to do anything. In the Kongo I seem to spend most of the game waiting for re-load by which time cruisers have slaughtered me, Torp planes me have killed me in 2 shots. Also if attacked by 2 or more torp plane squadrons more often than not you're dead coz the things cant move out of the way fast enough. I know you can see them coming from a mile off but I still cant seem to avoid the little scallywags.
Against - Destroyers
Use HE every time at any distance.
Destroyers are suicide machines because you need to get close to a BB or Cruiser to fire your torpedos, if you can get within range you usually get slaughtered by the big ships secondary guns never mind a one shot kill from a main gun. However, if you do get close enough your torpedoes can kill a Battleship in 1 or 2 salvo's if you can fire, get a hit, then turn 180 then fire again getting a second hit, but who am I kidding, this is a dream, by this time the secondary guns have killed you dead lol. Best way to use destroyers for me is to set smoke screen for you buddies and run, the guns are useful if enemy is not interested in you, very good against other destroyers.
Against - Cruisers
I use same as BB, HE at distance and AP when I can aim effectively close quarters.
In my opinion these are the best ships for me to use at any rate. They have everything, speed manoeuvrability and the fast firing hard hitting guns and even torpedos on some, well they seem to damage everything in sight. I was in my Kongo BB and I could see a Cleveland firing at me. As the first salvo was arriving I could the next salvo coming from that Cleveland almost continuously I couldn't move out of way fast enough and I to wait 30 seconds for re-load. These ships are like medium tanks, best used to flank BB when their gun turrets are pointing in the opposite direction coz you can run out of the way when they try to turn the turrets on you. My favourite Cruiser is in the 'St. Louis, this must have the best firing capability of any Cruiser, jesus christ, this thing has 14 main turrets and 18 secondary guns, its a death dealin' mean machine.
Torpedos
I reckon these will be nerfed at the first opportunity as they are devastating when used properly from any ship or plane. nuff said.
Aiming
Who said anything about auto-aim? Thank god its not in WoWs. Have you tried aiming at a "weak Spot" at 10 Km ! You just throw a salvo over and hope for best here ha ha ha.
Anyways, ranted for long enough.
World of Warships is going to be more challenging than World of Tanks and for me will make it more interesting to play, teamwork HAS to be used to win, there is no room for Rambos in this game you will get killed very quickly. You can play a tactical game or you can just go out shootin' sh*t. At the moment I think the game is going in the right direction. I reckon it can go live as is, get it published and to hell with all this open/closed beta stuff. Do what Microsoft does and sell it asap and fix it with patches every couple of weeks.
At the moment I consider myself very much an old noob at this game, but when I play it "I love it when a Plan comes together". I will be 60 soon and even at my age I like playing the WOSS games (World of Shootn crap).
