KMS_Tirpitz

Fuso range is fine at 21.8 km with the 2nd hull upgrade + FC upgrade. It gets worse once you get to the Nagato where range suddenly drops to 20.5 km for no good reason, and this is despite the Nagato featuring a longer ranged 410mm main armament and supposedly better rangefinding equipment tha the Fuso. As if that wasn't bad enough though the range gets even worse with Amagi at 19.9 km, and she features the same 410mm guns and RF as the Nagato.

Magni56 stop the trolling. Fact speaks against all your claims. Bismarck infact displayed the best gunnery in all her engagements: First at the Denmark strait where she was the first to straddle her target (Hood) and kept straddling and hitting her target until she stank. Next she switched to PoW and emmidiately straddled her, and kept this up whilst hitting her multiple times in process, and this was even whilst PoW was behind a smokescreen and Bismarck herself was maneuvering. In her final battle Bismarck was AGAIN the first to straddle her target, the HMS Rodney, and kept on straddling her with many near misses, incl. one shell which exploded right next to the ship and damaged her torpedo equipment. It actually took the British a further 5 min before they managed to straddle the Bismarck, and 12 min before they finally hit her with a shell to the main FC director, after which Bismarck's fire went wild. And this was despite the fact that the Bismarck was the sitting duck in this engagement, could only direct 4 of her guns at the enemy, whilst the British were firing all their guns at the Bismarck. So sure, that's "bad" German FCS for you It really is pointless of you to deny the technical facts about the German radars & FCS systems because they are out there and known, and a new book about them is on the doorstep.

Well of course, she was a sitting duck sailing in a slow constant 12 deg turn, only able to use two turrets at a time which had to be in a constant traverse to be on target. However this wasn't really a problem thanks to her advanced FC computer and remarkably Bismarck was actually the first to straddle her target, the HMS Rodney, despite using just 4 guns vs the 15 of the British ships who had even started the engagement. It took the British a further 5 min to start straddling the Bismarck, and shortly thereafter KGV managed to hit Bismarcks FC director - after that Bismarck's fire went wild and sporadic.

Missed that part... man that blows I really am dumbfounded at WGs decision here, making one of the most accurate warships in history one of the least accurate ingame.... my goodness, that is beyond words. *But hey, it's got torpedos!* Yay! Because that's what you wanna play with when you choose a Battleship

I'm not saying we should give them their real life accuracy, what I am saying is that we should give them an accuracy better than the rest to better reflect their real life performance relative to the other ships. In other words a 230 m max dispersion at 23.3 km for the Bismarck & Iowa class would do just fine and properly reflect their real life relative advantage in this area.

Nice chart there, thanks

Hehe yeah, the Americans tended to refer to German tanks in Marks or their Feline name

My God, some people....*shakes head* Sorry but fact is that the Bismarck class was very much capable of blindfire as she recieved lobe switching in 1940, and that's a fact This has been known for at least six years now. German radar also infact started out ahead of everyone else (esp. their gunnery radar), then fell slightly behind in late 42-43, and caught up again in early/mid 1944. Furthermore thanks to her automated analog FC computer the Bismarck class was capable of blind fire whilst maneuvering, just like the Iowa, something the Yamato was incapable of. You're welcome to back up any statement that Bismarck's FCS was overcomplex though, but I'm afraid you'll find none as it was very similar to the system aboard the USS Iowa Some reading for you: http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1724

I never said that BBs explode fairly regularly, it depends on their design, and yes British ships did show an unhealthy tendency to explode. Thus considering that being hit was inevitable, and that Bismarck's guns were easily able to penetrate any part of the Hood's hull, there was a fairly large chance that Hood would suffer catastrophic damage, esp. seeing it would only take one 380mm round to any of her magazines to cause disaster. In regards to the penetration performance of the 380mm SK C/38's, they are available here: http://www.bismarck-class.dk/technicallayout/armament/artillery380skc34.html With a penetration of 419mm of RHA at a 20 km range, the Bismarck could penetrate even the strongest part of the main belt of both British ships with apparent ease. Hence it is with good reason that these guns are considered some of the most powerful of the war, only falling behind the Iowa's 16" Mk.7's & Yamato's 18" Type 94 guns in terms of raw power. In short we are in hindsight able to see what the British couldn't, and that is that there was a very slim chance of HMS Hood coming out of that engagement alive, heck even the chances of the PoW escaping were slim but luckily the Germans made an error in not chasing and finishing her off. Again we can say this in hindsight, but the decisions of the German & British back then were based on completely different knowledge, thus we cannot criticise their decisions too much. Lutjens however can be criticised as he wasted a golden opportunity that was apparent to all officers aboard the Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, and despite loud protests from the captains of both ships he refused to budge. Either way the KM was never going to defeat the RN, it simply didn't have the numbers, and Bismarck's fate was sealed the day she sunk the Hood - even if she had escaped to France or Norway the British would've spared no expense on hunting her down and she would've been hounded by the RAF until the end of her days.

A fair assessment, we shall cross our fingers and wait and see I just hope she will be one of the most accurate and furthest reaching ships ingame to properly reflect her real life capability and performance. The Iowa also needs an accuracy boost IMHO as she was just as accurate. Of the ships ingame most in need of a range & accuracy boost right now though the Nagato, Amagi & Colorado are first in line, esp. their range makes no sense.

Also regarding the Yamato's FCS, I must disappoint you again Magni56 and point out that she lacked the blindfire capability of the Bismarck & Iowa class battleships radar guided fire control systems. In addition to this, and again unlike the Bismarck & Iowa class, the Yamato could not fire accurately whilst she was herself maneuvering, she had to run a straight course whilst firing to maintain her firing solution as she lacked the automatic analog FC computers found on the Bismarck & Iowa class. That having been said the Yamato did feature great optical equipment and her large rangefinder was an impressive piece of kit capable of very accurate range & bearing measurements during the day, that much is true. But German optics were infact slightly better, and that mainly thanks to the lens coating technology by Zeiss which was really was a gamechanging milestone within the optics industry. These lens coatings as mentioned improved the light transfering capability & clarity of image pr. lens by over 80%, thus also greatly improving nighttime visibility. Nonetheless, if the Yamato kept a straight course she was capable of very impressive gunnery during the day as she demonstrated during the Battle of Samar where she almost immediately straddled & hit the escort carrier USS Gambier Bay within a few short salvos. However as she was forced to maneuver to avoid torpedos she completely lost her aim (for above mentioned reasons) and thus had to retreat from the fight without achieving anymore hits or straddles.

The only one posting nonesense right now is yourself. First of all a lot has been learned since that outdated article by Lienau was written. You really should start relying on new research instead of old misinformation. A good place to start: http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=40ee6dba6e717ff3f4ad758f654ac0b5 Litterally calling Kriegsmarine FC systems garbage when they were in general slightly superior to Royal Navy FC systems and on par with late war US FC systems shows a major lack of objectivity on your part as well as an unhealthy emotional attachement to these ships. Stay calm and be objective, don't bash equipment to the point where you're clearly just raging because something doesn't suit your view on things, it ruins your argument. Fact is the Germans in general showcased more accurate gunnery than the British in almost every engagement, the Germans wer almost always the first to straddle their target and unlike the British they were able to keep straddling even whilst maneuvering and being under fire themselves, as demonstrated at the Denmark strait where they even kept straddling and hitting the PoW from behind her smokescreen thanks to Prinz Eugen's gunnery radar. (Bismarck's was out of commission) Again at Bismarck's last battle, despite lacking her gunnery radar and having only four guns firing the Bismarck was the first to straddle and keep straddling her target, the HMS Rodney, whilst it took the British BBs a further 5 min before straddling the Bismarck, and this was despite that the British started the shooting and that Bismarck litterally was the sitting duck in this engagement. A shell then struck Bismarck's main director, thus she lost her main FCS and her fire started to become wild & sporadic as the turrets were aimed individually under local control. Finally the "book" I referenced is not written by an author, it is an ACTUAL report for the Supreme Commander of the Allied expenditionary force! The contents there'in are the reports of actual soldiers in the field. It doesn't get much more reliable than that.

I'm sure you enjoy the Cruisers, DDs & CVs, no doubt.

No, just no. A skilled Cruiser commander can simply sail around in circles and the skilled BB commander won't be able to hit squat because of his guns' horrible dispersion and inability to predict which way the Cruiser will turn next. It isn't until the Cruiser gets stupidly close, within 10 km that the BB is really dangerous to it. From long range the Cruiser outscores the BB all day long, which is the EXACT opposite of reality.

You need to read up on this part of history mate, esp. in regards to your question about how often BBs went up like fire crackers. Jutland is good place to start, cause it happened multiple times there. But I guess you'd call that luck as well -_- And no, the Hood was by no means protected from the fire of Bismarck's 380mm SK C/34's which had a penetration performance at 20 km of 420mm of Rolled Homogenous Steel, the Hood didn't feature protection able to withstand this at all. It was a disaster waiting to happen and the PoW was lucky it didn't meet the same fate. Lutjens was following orders not to engage any enemy warships if he could avoid it, and he took this to the extreme, to the point where even Raeder who initially set the order said he had been too unaggressive and blamed him for not finishing off the PoW when he had the chance. Finally stop with the bias accusations and name calling, I am not calling you a RN fanboy am I? Address the subject, not the person.

Well in that case the Bismarck class (as well as all other German cruisers & battleships) should outrange even the Yamato class ingame as the Bismarck class featured the best optical rangefinders available anywhere, whilst not as wide at 10.5 m as those on the Yamato they featured both heatshielding and most importantly anti reflective lens coating. The anti reflective lens coating, patented and a highly kept secret by the Zeiss Jena company since 1935, improved the optical clarity pr. lens by over 80%. http://www.canonrumors.com/tech-articles/all-about-lens-coatings/ Optical equipment featuring this special lens coating was inscribed with the either letter "T", a single "✻" or “T✻” (T-star), as seen on this TzF 5 sight from a Pz.IV and TzF 9 sight from a German tiger tank: ' alt='tzf4.jpg'> ' alt='nsutzf9b.JPG'> All German naval optics were given these coatings from 1936, whilst tank sights, rifle telescopes, binoculars & camera equipment started using it from 1937. And incase you're wondering how big an effect such an 80% increase in clarity constituted in terms of improvement in the accuracy of gunnery, even at the by comparison very short ranges of WW2 tank engagements (usually within 800m, and stretching out to 3.5 km max, as compared to the usual 15+ km of BB engagements) it had a major impact as US tankers, officers & grunts testify: "There was always a lot of talk about the effectiveness of the German tank guns against us. It is true they had to stop to fire, but they started firing at 1,200 to 1,500 yards. Their first shot was always a hit. We, on the other hand, had to get within 500 to 600 yards to be within effective firing distance, and even our best gunners needed at least two shots before they could score a hit. Our CO, captain Jimmy Leach, sent the platoon sergeant down to my tank during one of the lulls between german artillery barrages, and he hollered up, 'Hey Sator, you speak German' ? 'Yeah, why ?' I answered. 'The radio in that abandoned German tank (Pz.Kpfw.IV) back there is alive. Captain wants you to listen and see what they are talking about.' So, I went to him. Sure enough, when we got there, you could hear the radio squawking. I climbed in and put the gunners earphones on. It was difficult to hear, and because the guy was talking in a strange dialect, I could understand only a few words here and there. Then I saw the gun-sight and I figured I might as well look through it while I was there, and as soon as I did, almost immediately, the realization came to me why the German tank gunners were so accurate. 'crap, I wanna go home' was the only thing I could think of at the moment. Their sights were so far superior to ours that we didn't stand a chance."- Tom Sator, M4 Sherman crewman, US Army 4th AD: The German sight has provision made for range estimation in the sight. The principle seems to be similar to the focusing of a camera - at least they get hits consistently at ranges which makes it improbable they could have accurately estimated the range as we must. They also have filters conveniently built into their sight for various light conditions. The magnification of the German sight is greater than ours, on the Mark V & Mark VI, and has an adjustable reticle for the type of ammunition being fired. The lens seems to be made of better glass than ours. They also seem to have better light transmission capabilities."- Phillip C. Calhoun, Major, 3rd Battalion, 66th AR"The sights on the Mark V tank are better than the sights on the American M4, because they seem to be clearer, are adjustable, and are more powerful. Also, range estimation can be obtained with the German sight."- David O. Craycraft, 1st Lt. 3rd BN, 66th AR"The few undamaged German tank sights I have seen are definitely superior to our sights in clearness and speed of laying."- Colonel S.R. Hinds, Commanding Combat Command "B""The German tank sights are definitely superior to American sights. These, combined with the flat trajectory of the guns, give great accuracy."-Bregadier General J.H. Collier, Commanding Combat Command "A""The German sights are better than ours, as they are able to choose their power between 2 and six power, where ours is a stationary three power. The German sights have lighted graduations and can lay on a target at night"- Howard A. Wood, T/5 Gunner"The German tanks have it all over ours as far as sights and the cannon on the tank goes"- Sgt. McGinnis & crew opinion"During the period 24-25 November 1944 when the company was holding in the vicinity of Gereonsweiler, Germany, German tanks were obtaining hits on our tanks and tank destroyers at ranges of thirty two hundred yards from vicinity of Lindern, Germany. The weather was generally misty and foggy. We were able to see these tanks only with great difficulty through our sights"- Lt. Shirk, Platoon Leader, Company "A" Sgt. Lewis A Taylor, US Army 2nd AD, 1945"The German telescopic sights mounted in their tanks are far superior to ours. In particular, it is more powerful. Infact all their optical equipment is superior to ours""The matter of tank gun sights has caused us much concern. I have looked through and worked with sights in German Mark V and Mark VI tanks as well as our own. I find that the German sight has more magnifying power and clearness that our own, which is a big advantage to a gunner" - Lt. Colonel Wilson M. Hawkins, US Army 3rd Bn 67th AR, 1944 Source: United States vs. German Equipment: As Prepared for the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force by Isaac D. Wight Can be bought here: http://www.amazon.com/United-States-German-Equipment-Expeditionary/dp/1468068156

Indeed, to say the least, even worse when that T8 Battleship boasted & displayed perhaps the most accurate gunnery of the war. I really do hope WG listens to this and brings it way down to a level where it better reflects its historical capability.

To put this into context: Atm the Kongo, a much older ship with smaller guns and a very antiquadated fire control system as compared to the Bismarck class, features a 231m dispersion at 21.2 km. Yep, Kongo 231 m vs Bismarck 274 m at the same distance..... Unbelievable...

You can't call it luck when we're talking about a running battle were both parties are zero'ing in on their target. Eventually hits will happen, and eventually a catastrophic one will result if the ship isn't properly protected against it, and the Hood was not properly protected from the main armaments of other BBs. What happened to the Hood was not bad luck, it was what was to be expected considering the capabilities of the ships involved. The British didn't know this at the time, and neither did the Germans, all they had to go by were intelligence photographs and estimations - they never knew exactly what the other party was capable of. Thus they had to gamble, otherwise they would never get anywhere anyway. Luck was that Lütjens chose not to follow and finish off the PoW, but both parties also experienced bad luck, first the Bismarck as it damaged its own FCR during a salvo against the shadowing ships Norfolk & Suffolk before the battle with Hood & PoW, and then PoW with her some of her guns and turrets jamming during the battle.

I am not saying that it was, but the Germans were up amongst the most accurate when it came to guns & fire control, and mainly thanks to their advances in optics & ballistics, whilst in radar they were first ahead, then behind and finally on par with the British & US from early 1944 onwards. They were the first to use radar for fire control, they were the first to heat shield their optics, the first to coat their lenses to improve optical clarity by 80+ percent. As a result they were almost always the fastest to get on target, and providing their FCS wasn't damaged also able to keep hitting for the longest as well, despite maneuvering. Hence the Germans demonstrated better hit rates than anyone else during the naval engagements of WW1 & WW2, not always by much but it was there, so why try to paint a completely different picture ingame for people to start believing? It's going to be frustrating for a great deal of history teachers when kids who grew up playing these games come with their own completely misguided interpretations of WW2 and the vehicles involved.

I am talking about historical vehicles, not prototypes or paper projects. Why not at least try to use historical fact as a guideline? I'm not saying they should follow it to the last rivet, and of course balance needs to be considered just as much. But why make some of the most accurate ships historically some of the least accurate ingame? It paints a completely wrong picture of history and how these ships compared relative to each other. The beauty of playing games revolving around military history has always been that you could learn something on the way, and that it made many people read more into history - thus why ruin this and decieve people into believing something about certain equipment that was the complete opposite in reality? Having stuff make sense in a game makes it A LOT more enjoyable for those playing it, and A LOT less frustrating when things don't go their way ingame as they can at least then relate to some historical scenarios in a limited way to gain some understand.

Yeah it makes zero sense from both a historical and balance point of view. But I guess WG want to paint the Germans in a certain way that fits their view on history and not actual fact. WG is a Russian firm yes?

274m dispersion: http://ritastatusreport.blogspot.dk/2015/08/wows-bismark.html I was excited to play the Bismarck & Tirpitz, not anymore though. This is ridiculous beyond explanation, and I think its the last drop for me.

That depends on the ship, they get more expensive the bigger the ship. It's right next to the engine upgrade module.

The range of Warspite is indeed ridiculous and needs to be increased dramatically.