invicta2012

It seems to be back, and more importantly, working fine. No more transports merrily a-wandering around the map. Rewards seem perfectly fine for levelling.

It depends on how brave they are feeling. Reading some books on French BBs and it appears that neither DK or Strasbourg ever had separate HE and AP ammunition. It was all SAP, specifically short fuse SAP with a heavy bursting charge for blowing up cruisers. I doubt they would go the whole hog with that, but some Hood like AP performance might be quite good, especially with the MBRB. Would definitely give her a role.

I don't think it was garbage, but it certainly had its problems. It was an ineffective AA weapon on Battleships (too slow to track and fire) and neither a first class AA or surface weapon on cruisers, which is where Cunningham's issues came in. Some RN attempts at innovation were successful, this one wasn't wholly satisfactory.

Because it was an effective wheeze to make ships comply with the naval treaties of the time, but it made the ship very vulnerable to torpedo damage at the stern, due to the concentration of engine and boiler rooms.

The 5.25 was never really that good. Not fast-firing enough to be a good AA weapon, not powerful enough to be a good anti-surface weapon (there was never an AP shell as it was felt the gun lacked penetration). Andrew Cunningham (when he became First Sea Lord) cancelled an entire line of cruiser development based on the 5.25 inch gun because of his dislike of the Dido class ships compared to the Leanders and Arethusas. By the end of WW2 the RN has become focused around the 4.5 inch gun as the AA/secondary weapon of choice, and that would make a perfectly decent high tier DP gun (it was on the 1944 Lion design)

Perhaps it would be insensitive - both on religious and historical grounds - to allow people to blow up the real thing. But I think Bismarck looks great with flying buttresses - if the camo is a leftover from the Warhammer 40k collab. it's better than the ones they actually sold.....

It's a gothic cathedral. Looks more French than German, although I suppose it could well be inspired by Cologne Cathedral. Do we get Plymouth with Smeaton's Tower, too?

Nope. If you want ships to fit the meta, get a WG napkin special like Lyon. Strasbourg should be treated as per her design, a cruiser killer made to counter Graf Spee and Italian BBs like GC. Speed, range and rate of fire are her advantages, and those are significant against other ships in her MM spread.

I've got it. Feels like it was good in 2018.

That's actually the secondary layout from the third variant of the Richelieu class: Clemenceau. Not right for Strasbourg but it is a commissioned BB design so I can live with it. It should also have the ACAD AA guns also found on Lyon. If they've buffed her overall plating to prevent overmatch through the bow, I'm super excited.

Premium time, premium ships, operations. A Tier VI Premium like Ark Royal or Aigle will pay its way very quickly.

A different beast to the other Tier VIs, which is interesting to play. And I prefer it to Weser. Having played a lot of Tier VI CVs in Operations I can tell you that... overall I do less damage in the E.L. than in other CVs but that I tend to win more often, especially in the dreaded Newport. E.L.'s ability to hit cruisers for 33-50% of their HP in one pass is not to be sniffed at, and her HE bombs are very effective against DDs - although they take a lot of practice to master. I find the CV will struggle a little against Battleships as the torpedoes are slow and don't set floods as often as a player would want. But if you concentrate on her strengths, you free other players up to attack the BB, so that's all good. You do need to respect AA blobs and shorten your squadrons to keep planes available, but again, that's good discipline. I've enjoyed playing it.

Leningrad? High Speed, strong artillery, smoke, 8k torpedoes - you might find that fits the "similar but different" brief, especially if you've been playing Euro DDs. It always gets forgotten but it's quite good.

Didn't Myogi get the same AP as Ishizuchi? I know they buffed it a bit... I disliked Turenne, but I always thought Courbet seemed a decent ship - lost in the CV fog at Tier IV, of course, but with a long main battery reach for her Tier she'd probably have been quite popular, pre-CV rework.

The Swordfish's versatility kept it in use - its ability to carry torpedoes, rockets, radar - as well as the fact that it could fly off an escort carrier's deck in an Atlantic swell and be recovered afterwards. In situations where it could encounter opposition fighters it was hopelessly outclassed (see the Channel Dash for details). The thing about the Albacore (which the game never lets it do) was that it was capable of dive bombing. Rather like the Skua - the first carrier based place to sink an enemy warship - the game places national flavour over the actual capabilities of the planes.

I think that traditional destroyers should have an evasive manoeuvres button - a short term speed boost and buff to rudder shift - more than anything else.

They're not. Murmansk has all the advantages. Rudder shift, gun range, spotter plane, torpedo range. You can nag BBs to death with that ship in a way that Omaha can't. Carefully, like Emerald. Both ships need to be very very circumspect at range and not get involved in gun fights unless you have good cover. But Genova marmalises DDs with SAP, and has strong close range torpedo capabilities, so if you can work a surprise ambush, you can do damage.

I think Cavalier is a VII, personally. Cossack torps (as she only has four) and enhanced dakka/AA from those 4.5 inch guns. Otherwise: HMS Hardy - because she's a notable historic ship and, as a five gun DD Leader, different to any existing UK DD Strasbourg - because French Battleships are the coolest ships in the game. Strasbourg should be Tier VII, with upgraded armour to prevent 15 inch overmatch and MBRB in the Jean Bart style. USS New Jersey - because we need more Iowa Montcalm - post war Tier VII La Gal class French radar cruiser with MBRB - because French cruisers are just as cool as British and Italian ones Chateaurenault (French post war DD and a total mash up - the hull is an Italian Capitano Romani, the main guns (3x2) are the German 104mm AA secondaries from Graf Zeppelin, her AA is 10 x twin 57mm guns from Jean Bart, she has 12 torpedo tubes and a top speed of 39 knots. A DD for the current meta).

She started out as very similar to a Lion class design. The initial designs of Vanguard don't have that pyramid superstructure we see in game - she has the same central canyon as KGV, for the aircraft handling gear. But that's Lion's 1938 iteration which is in WoWs terms, Monarch/KGV with 16 inch guns. That's something I would like to see in the game as a Tier VIII Warspite type AP focused RN BB - a bit of 406mm clout to rival the Soviets and Americans. There are also plans in the DNC notebooks for RN BBs with 12 x 14 inch guns and 16 x 2 5.25 inch turrets, which might make a secondary based ship, as well as the 1944 redesign of Lion itself, which bears very little resemblance to Conqueror or Thunderer - think Montana.

Play an operation/scenario. It's easy enough to get one or two from a decent run.

I know, but I'll also age faster and my doctor has told me not to do things which raise my blood pressure. So Ops it is.

Play Scenarios instead?

It reads to me like you'll be able to get the Konig Albert and the Vampire, which will be great if that's the case. I have them both and they're always good fun to take out for a spin. I can't see that the prize is Camos for those ships, as they both have very nice original camos - Vampire especially, as it's an authentic wartime one with her later pennant number.

Well, I'm not going to take a shot at your successes.... but I think the fact is you've played half your games in Kii and Scharnhorst. As they're premiums - and pretty decent credit earners too - then they've been bankrolling you. Higher Tiers won't make you money unless you play well, so it's a matter of working out which ships are making you money and how many games you need to play in those to keep your credit stocks buoyant before venturing out into Tier IX and X. A quick Scharn game in Co-op with a Premium Account will make me about 100k credits, frequently more, so you should always play a few of those in every game session to keep the credits coming in.

So ships will be encouraged to turn their AA off to avoid detection, but if they are detected then their AA defences will turn back on so slowly that they will be defenceless for at least one, and probably two strikes - not even continuous damage?