RedBear87

Hibiki's catchphrases were all but well placed. Overall the first episode made a good impression on me, anyway. For what I'm concerned Arpeggio's anime was a decent spot for the manga, which is genuinely good. Probably it doesn't make any sense unless you already play the game or at least are moderately familiar with it.

There's plenty of choice at those tiers, La Masa and Generali class are other possible candidates for tier II. Aquila class could make it at even higher tiers, mr3awsome suggested tier V for Marasti in the EU tree, I would say at least tier IV.

You're welcome. The second Audace is another possible WWI-era premium, but I suppose that it's really tier II material, because of the position of the guns (broadside of four) and torpedoes (one twin mount on each beam). It has an interesting story nonetheless.

There's also the earlier Premuda, the former SMS V116. Four 15cm guns and two twin 600mm torpedo tubes on 2,300 tonnes, speed of almost 35 knots. I'm not sure about tier placement, but I'm tempted to give her at least tier IV, there are few torpedoes but they should hurt more than those of destroyers at tier III.

Yeah, why not. The later Spica were quite "overloaded", which reduced speed to 30-ish knots, rather than big, but I'm a fan of all those torpedo boats (I wrote about them in the US forum months ago). I would place Spica at tier II or III, while Ariete could perhaps make it at tier IV.

I misunderstood you here, I agree Etna is probably better suited to become a premium, the most strictly related design is the Swedish Tre Kronor. Ironically Atlanta has many paper sisters which could link her to Worcester, I hope Wargaming will eventually reconsider this choice; the Japanese heavy torpedo cruiser is a one off craziness which is well suited to become a premium, Atlanta was instead just one step in the development of American cruisers after the Second London Naval Treaty. I think I could have mentioned it in a previous iteration of this thread, a possible premium heavy cruiser could be the 1923 10,000 tons "light cruiser" (heavy cruiser actually, but in Italy, like in America, the first generation of 10,000 tons Treaty cruisers were perceived as too lightly protected to be called "heavy"): Essentially it should be similar to Trento in terms of performance, but as you can see a number of solutions are different, the forward funnels aren't truncated together, the catapult is located amidships, there's a marked ram on the bow like in the Di Giussano. The detailed plans of this project are available on the ANB, which means that implementing it should be easy enough.

IIRC it's been mentioned in the Q&A that Atlanta has been turned into a premium. Supposedly there was going to be Worcester in the US line, in mr3awsome tech tree she's still listed at tier VIII. With its 200mm belt this original concept, I have no idea if there's an actual project, would have been much better protected, I think it's at least tier IX material.

The paragraph about the conversion seems to talk about the class in general, for example it says and in a later point it says "a number of vessels", without further specifying just how many, but it doesn't look like the study was done specifically for Di Giussano alone.

This one is probably the ship identified as tier I in the currently known tech tree. But indeed the armament is weak, the other two tier I have 152mm/6-in guns.

I'm talking about this Brummer, the Artillerieschulschiffe.

I was wondering, where is it possible to place the WWII-era Bremse training ship? At 2000 tons (full load) and 29 knots it appears to be a small destroyer, but it doesn't have torpedoes. Low tier (premium?) cruiser? How low?

The lack of a fixed-wing AEW platform isn't such a big loss, in any coalition effort, including mini-coalition with France (please don't, everyone remember how it ended up last time at Suez), someone else could provide this capability, while in the eventuality of a Falkland-like conflict AEW helicopters will have to do. I don't think there will be many instances where this capability will prove to be crucial.

I stand corrected, thanks. It's interesting that they stopped working internally in imperial measures so early. I got confused because they did certainly have the habit of rounding numbers up, like the 8cm Type 98 gun which was actually 76.2mm/3in. I read literally everything and the opposite of everything about Tone's peculiar arrangement. Lacroix in his book seems to support the view that it was simply a consequence of the scouting cruiser role (pag. 503 of Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War); Lengerer instead in Conway's Warship no. 42 adds that: Honestly I'm at loss over the exact reason, it could have been a combination of reasons most likely. Certainly it doesn't look to me like it was because the Mogamis were so utterly bad, those ships got a bad fame that was completely out of proportion.

27/29, because of the CVE like everyone else (skipped 21 and 23). Aaaand to think that I was actually musing over Japanese CVE earlier today, their air groups (or lack thereof) in particular. Some notes about the questions and comments:

According to Franco and Valerio Gay in The Cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni published by Conway Maritime Press, there were several conversion plans, drafted both by the Comitato Progetti Navi (the in-house navy design team) and O.T.O. The first design was presented by Comitato Progetti Navi in February 1938, it involved the removal of all 152mm turrets to replace them with 16 single 90mm/48 (the gun was still under development at the time and it was somewhat shorter, L48 instead of L50) supplemented by ten twin 20mm machineguns amidships. It was a pretty simple conversion, fire control equipment was to be installed on the slightly modified bridge, while ammunition magazines and hoists would have been modified to handle 90mm and 20mm ammuntions. Around the area of the 90mm mounts the deck would have been reinforced with 30mm of nickel-chrome steel plates, improving horizontal protection. The removal of the 152mm turrets was estimated to compensate for the added weight of the armour plates and the new armaments. It's the first drawing of this picture from a Russian book (click on the picture for full resolution): Meanwhile in March 1938 O.T.O. presented its own design which had been required by the Navy ministry, this is the conversion of your picture where it says "marzo 1938" and the second drawing from the picture I posted above. It was a more radical affair, the arrangement of the 16 90mm guns was identical, but it involved the full reconstruction of the bridge, removal of the tetrapod mast and installation of four directors, this allowed to control independently each of the three groups of 90mm guns and the 20mm machineguns, with obvious advantages in handling contemporary multiple aerial threats. The same 20mm were concentrated on two elevated and stabilised platforms just forward the second funnel, this solution would have significantly improved their arcs and volume of fire compared to the solution proposed in the earlier proposal. The final design is the hybrid one, it was presented by Comitato Progetti Navi in June 1938, I believe it kept in account the O.T.O. proposal because it's similar for some aspects, but I'm not sure about it. Four fore 90mm single mounts are gone in favour of two twin 135mm/45 O.T.O. mounts; fire control installation was modified to handle the new gun, with a 6m rangefinder and relevant fire control installations, while high angle directors for the 90mm guns would have been reduced to three. It's peculiar that the book of Franco and Valerio Gay insists, twice, that the 135mm guns and relevant modifications to the magazines were located aft, not fore, but I think it's a mistake. Personally I always favoured the second proposal, reducing volume of AA fire for a weak anti-surface capability looks like a bad compromise to me. The conversion was not carried out apparently because the AA armament of the capital ships and accompanying escorts was perceived as adequate, while pre-war strategy never considered the need of protecting traffic to Libya. Also it seems that there were bottlenecks in the production of the new 90mm/50 guns. EDIT: A variation of the third proposal called for one single elevated platform with the 20mm machineguns disposed at arc like in the first proposal, I suppose this variation lacked the stabilisation of the O.T.O. proposal. It's the "variante al progetto giugno 1938" in your picture, but it's not very clear from the side view, I'm going to post the relevant pictures from Conway's book to better illustrate it: Again, click on them for the full resolution picture.

A little contribute, RN Quarto: and RN Nino Bixio: The pictures come from the official website of the Italian navy, both protected cruisers were involved in the battle of 28 December 1915 in the Strait of Otranto. Click on the pictures if you want to see the full resolution version.

You're most welcome. Effectively the first occupation of Albania isn't very famous in Italy, usually the front with Austria-Hungary in north-east Italy takes all the attention when it comes to our involvement in WWI.

No, you're right. I mixed up length overall with length on the waterline. Kai Agano is 12.5m longer and 1.2m beamer, measured overall. It looks like I'm prone to make silly mistakes lately. Anyway I suppose that a similar AA suite could have been given to Kai-Agano as well, it should have more than enough margin, she carried twice the number of secondaries than Agano in the first place. Thanks to Daimon Frey for the pictures, I hope things will turn out for the best.

Durazzo was being occupied by Italian troops to help supporting the Serbs, the objective of the Austro-Hungarians was interrupting the traffic of soldiers and supplies. Italian occupation lasted until 1916, when we evacuated the Serbs. The Austro-Hungarians re-occupied Durazzo, but Valona remained under Italian control for the whole duration of the war, protected by 100,000 soldiers. Italian troops were eventually evacuated only in 1920, ending the first Italian protectorate over Albania which had been declared in 1917.

We will never let His Lordship John "Jackie" Fisher rest in peace, won't we?

At tier VI with Agano too at the same tier? You risk to make same "mistake" WG did with the SU-122-44 in WoT, it would be better than its regular counterpart. Agano and Kai-Agano were of similar dimensions, C-44 was 5 metres longer and 1.4 metres beamer, while the superstructure appears to be almost identical, except apparently for the somewhat wider funnel. I think the higher displacement was eaten by the heavier machinery. It's difficult to talk about the manoeuvrability of a cruiser that was never built, but my guess is that probably it should have a somewhat larger tactical diameter at higher speed, assuming a similar steering arrangement.

I don't think Kai-Agano would work very well at tier VII, she would be much more comfortable at tier VI. Let's just make a comparison between Kai-Agano at tier VII and Mogami at tier VIII: almost twice the guns (with longer range and better shells), almost twice the armour thickness on the machinery (almost thrice on the magazines' vertical protection), same speed. On the cons side I can only think of having two less torpedoes per side. Isn't it just too much of an improvement from one tier to the next one?

You're correct, I wonder how I ended up convincing myself yesterday night that she was going to use 15.5cm/60, my bad. Apparently a twin mount with 15.5cm/60 guns was experimentally built, but it was too heavy for Agano (and presumably C-44/Kai-Agano). Range and weight are fair points, but rate of fire appears to be essentially the same, Agano's mount is credited in Lacroix's book with an effective six rounds per minute and a theoretical ten rounds per minute. I don't have access to authoritative and detailed books for British cruisers, but navweaps credits that gun with 6-8 rounds per minute. Like Ainen said secondary armament can be at least equalised with the planned AA refit for Noshiro. The 10cm Type 98 is actually quite superior in terms of range. They're over 50% longer than any destroyer at that tier, you can't expect them to survive for a long time if they're rated too high in the tech tree where they'll meet many heavy cruisers that could disable them with any hit at any range.