Affeks

I've been much more impressed by Nelson than Hood. Nelson has a much higher skill cap than Hood and rewards good positioning and aim. Hood on the other hand is easy to do okay in, but difficult to do well in since you are praying for good RNG to get any high damage score. Hoods tankyness and lack of any real weakness ensures you dont get many bad games though.

305mm guns at tier 7 are more than good enough. You gotta remember than Scharnhorst has 283mm guns, that and the fact that it only has 9 guns while the 37 000 ton design were discussing has 12 of them. Not only that but KGV has 10 356mm guns, but 356mm guns dont overmatch anything important over the 305mm guns. Neither can overmatch the 25mm threshold. Battleships with smaller caliber at this tier can only be compared to Scharnhorst, and currently the 37 000ton design and Scharnhorst has many pros and cons compared to each other. While the 23 690 design at tier 6 is indeed a stretch, but the 37 000 design with 305mm guns I'm pretty darn sure would work just fine. Heres a comparison between Scharnhorst and A1 37 000 ton design: A1 vs Scharnhorst +++ 3 knots faster More HP (~4-7k) More guns (33% more guns) Bigger guns (22mm larger) --- Worse Armor (worse belt and weaker turtleback) Bigger target (20 meters longer hull) Worse secondaries Worse AA (soft stat WG can adjust) Now WG can also adjust accuracy and many other soft stats... maybe even add consumables. Both ships have torps, so WG could even give the 37 000 ton design better performance on those torps as well. TBH Scharnhorst would be better at tanking and brawling, but 37 000 ton would be better at dealing more damage with mid range kiting and positioning.

Sooo, is the 457mm guns finally somewhat worth it now? How I see it the AP for the 457mm guns are better now, but 419mm guns are better for HE spam. I really want to know if the higher sigma and autobounce angles make the 18" guns worth it for AP now or if the sheer volume of the 419s still trump it.

Oh crap they dont? Okay well count me out haha No real reason to buy it then even if its buffed

I doubt it cuz Nelson

kill me

Any idea when Hood will be available in the store again? Seems like a bad candidate to only release here and there considering how famous she is..

If they buff it to a playable state I'll buy it. TBH i just wanna buy it for those secondaries. CV with a seconadry build has been my dream for a while now

You know even after they pulled the ship out from sales, they still have it modelled and in game. Some people datamined some patches where they added different consumables to Kitakami. They gave it Hydro/speed boost+Kutuzov smoke. So basically if its this version we see at some point it may not be that gimmicky anymore.

Not true, the dispersion, reload, gun handling and armor layout are all worse. I've been talking to people about Kii and right now it looks like a waaaay worse Amagi with Torps.. thats it... no real reason to buy her and anything from p2w yet. Expect it to be buffed though. While that is true, they still cant really match up to ships like Iowa. The most natural tier 9 for Japan would really be n13 class fast battleships.

Happy news people, if the IFHE change pulls through that means the fire chance reduction to the 128mm secondaries will only be 1% instead of 3%. Another victory for IFHE GK and Gneisenau hahaha If it happens IFHE on the ships with 105mm wont be as bad either. God BBs just dont stop winning lmao. Another nerf to cruisers and another "buff" to BBs. Currently halfway through FdG, but when GK hits my port I'll make sure to use IFHE and chase those bows haha.

Personally I dont mind either way. The historical idea with having one facing backwards is that you get the magazine grouped together in such a way that you can have a shorter armor belt to save weight. In game though it doesnt really make a difference. tbh Izumo itself is fine, but it just has way too many weaknesses. Terrible AA, Very big, slow, bad concealment, very VERY bad armor plating, least HP of BBs at tier 9 and just overall not very agile. There are many soft stats that could be buffed instead. Keeping the Izumo turret setup as is will add more variety to the game. Most ships with a similar turret layout were never built and will most likely never end up in game.

"First of all" read the thread and you will see I already addressed the "game balance over historical accuracy argument" Second, You do realize that tons of other stuff on ships are affected by weather? That still doesnt translate in game because every match is basically a "perfect weather conditions" scenario except for cyclones. With that said why would max speed be effected by it when about nothing else is? Third: I know engine power was pushed, that still doesnt take away the fact that engines can be pushed during combat scenarios as well "Ah he has a childish habit so I'll point it out to make me feel superior" Yeah congrats mate you got me. I already addressed that these ships were lighter than full load, but it is far from a "base crew and without any ammo or supplies". The test listing clearly states that there were at least 3-4 k tons over standard displacement, almost half of a full load. While the rest of your arguments here are sound, WG still dont count for machinery wear, barrel wear much less "fouling and corrosion". ... I never said the pre war refit that added the engines ffs. I said ww2 refits that further added weight AFTER the initial trials that happened after engine refit. In itself your argument is wrong here since these 30 knot speeds are also trials or when forcing the engines. Thats why all sources say "reached beyond 30 knots".

Can we get Dunkerque's historical speed anytime soon? It kinda angers me when I see the 29.5 knots it has in WoWs as it took me less than a minute to find plenty a sources (other than Wiki ofc) stating that it reached beyond 30 knots many times. Looking at this we can see Dunkerque being able to reach 30 knots during an 8 hour trial, and more importantly reaching 31 knots when forcing beyond for 2 hours (way longer than any WoWs match ). It even reached close 29.4 knots while using only 88% of the 107k shp engine power listed in game. Heck even Strasbourg (heavier than Dunkerque) reached beyond 29.5 when not using all 107k of the shp listed in game. Seems to me Dunkerque would easily reach 30 knots with 107 000 shp. I would personally like 31 knots, but 30 knots + spood beest would work too. Dunkerque isnt too strong at all so its not like this buff would tip the scales or anything. I would really not like to wait untill French BBs arrive to get a Dunkerque buff. (sauce: French Battleships 1922-1956)

Unless the ship is named Khabarovsk, then going all out on armor, health, guns and speed surely wont make it op

I think BBs can actually benefit somewhat from speed boost, it lets you accelerate and stop faster, meaning you can dodge, weave and evade torps and long range volleys more easily without losing all your momentum. It would also let French BBs reach trial speeds without having super high normal speed. TBH I like the idea, but sadly not everyone does thoug.

While I agree that many ships have a playstyle that needs mastering (like Atlanta, took me 30-40 games before I got comfertable in it), it doesnt change the fact that I have almost 130 games in Dunkerque, giving it chance after chance feeling like I've mastered it 100 games ago. Despite all that it underperforms and when I look at the stats it doesnt really surprise me. The 330s just arent accurate enough to reliably punish enemies, AA so weak CV just waltz up to you, ship so large and unarmored any HE spam melts you, HP so low you cant stay under sustained fire for long yet the speed is just 3 knots faster than that of Mutsu that is way more accurate, has bigger guns, torps and a lot more HP. Speed is supposed to be its strength, but its currently outrun by all the competition, Kongos, Gneisenaus, Scharnhorsts and not to mention all the tier 8s you meet with all the tier 8 MM. Personally I love the all forward setup, but it isnt worth losing the accuracy and gun caliber over.

I looked up the stats and it sure looks that way, but despite Dunkerque being one of my most played ships I find it underperforming very much compared to my other tier 6 BBs Edit: personally I believe Dunkerque's good stats is because of the nature of the players that play her the most. While at the same time there are tons of beginners that play Fuso, NM and Bayern since they are silver ships.

True enough, but doesnt change the fact that Dunkerque could use a loving touch from WG. So within the game balance having historical accuracy here would be anything but bad

Look at the trials listed pls, it clearly spesifies that the displacement during trials was above 30k tons while the unloaded displacement of Dunkerque is less than 27k. read pls it even spesifies which trials they force the engine and when they use max power, they are two different things. Dunkerque was designed with 107k shp while in many of these trials 30 knots are reached WITHOUT forcing.

Well not really, you see the its only one test here where they pushed the engine. Rest of the tests that reach over 30 knots are all at MAX POWER, not FORCING. Also why would they push on trials, but not during combat where survival/victory depends on it lmao WG gave Gneisenau the 32 knot max speed since Scharnhorst is already overperforming. I own Scharnhorst and I dont mind the slower speed, it has way to many other strengths over Gneisenau already. ^This!!! I hate how WG give some strong ships the trial/overly optimistic trial speeds, but ships that are arguably weak sometimes keep the shitty lower speeds. I mean currently Dunkerque is outrun by Kongo, which after weight added by ww2 refits reached no more than 28-29 knots. If WG was a bit more consistent I wouldn't be this triggered.

There are a few things I wanna address, for example you might think "how can a 10 12 inch guns compete with Fuso or NM's 14" guns?". well the simple answer is that these ships were designed much later compared to something like the Wyoming, meaning that these ship's 12 inch guns most likely have much better performance compared to the pre ww1 ships/guns. I'm expecting these 12" guns to behave much like Dunkerques 13" guns, High velocity medium weight shells with a lot of penetration as well as good gun handling. A reload around 2.5-2.8 rpm is reasonable considering they were designed between the WW1 ships with 12" guns like Wyoming and WW2 ships like Alaska. All ships have much room for refits giving much room for extra AA, armor or even larger guns if need be.

I've been reading around and I've found that Dunkerque was originally planned to be slightly smaller, lighter, have 305mm guns in the same setup and without the two wing mounted twin 130mm DP guns. Seems to me that it would fit perfectly as a tier 5 ship since its just a slightly worse Dunkerque. Sadly I found no picks on it, but shouldnt be too much of a problem since it is super similar to Dunkerque. Anyways it would have about 5k less HP than Dunkerque due to the loss in weight, but since the guns are smaller it could maybe have better RoF. The 305mm guns overmatch 21mm armor and the 330s only overmatch 23mm armor, so there isnt really any overmatch thresholds lost with the 305mm guns. With this piece of info I found a pretty obvious ship progression here: Tier 5: 23 333 ton Proto Dunkerque, 2x4 305mm guns, 30 knots top speed, 3x4 130mm DP guns, 47700 hp, 230mm belt armor, up to 150mm deck armor Tier 6: 23 690 ton 1929-1931 design study, 1x4+2x3 305mm guns, 29knots top speed, 4x2 138mm secondaries+8x2 100mm DP guns, 48200HP, as for armor though, its a tricky questions. "French Battleships 1922-1957" mentions it and says no armor was detailed about it, the author says that 180-200mm belt would be reasonable, but I personally think that an armor thickness closer to Dunkerque or thicker when looking realistically at the ship (its length, armament, secondaries, speed). Anyways since there are no historical info on it WG could use it as a soft stat for balancing. Tier 7: 37 000 ton 1927 desing study, 3x4 305mm, 33 knots max speed, 3x4 130mm+8 90mm DP guns, 60500 HP, 220-280mm belt, 38+15+90+25mm Deck armor. As you can see the Main Battery progression is quite consistent (8-10-12), the speed is all in the same league, the HP progresses normally as well and it doesnt break any caliber progression rules. The 1929 design is the odd one out since its kinda like a tier 5.5 as opposed to a clear cut tier 6, still WG could make it work.

(PS: Buff accuracy while you're at it?)

You should also look up threads on Tone and Ooyodo, both are kinda classified "Aviation cruiser" and there was even a rumor that Tone was in testing as a hybrid carrier at one point with 6 dive bombers. Since Tone is already modelled in game and was even sold at one point on the Chinese server most info on Hybrid carrier type ships are found on threads on Tone.