invicta2012

That and bombardment, which they were (for obvious reasons) very good at. But you only have to look at the performance of Royal Sovereign at the Battle of Calabria - couldn't keep up with Warspite or Malaya (the latter only being capable of around 18 knots) and failing to enter the engagement at all - to see the Admiralty's point. If the Revenge class ever makes it into the game at all I would say it is as Tier V with a 33-35 second reload. And I can't see that being a whole bunch of fun to play, especially not when there are more dynamic ships from the Battlecruiser line such as Tiger, Princess Royal, etc.

Split them up between Battlecruiser/Fast Battleships with a faster reload and HE focus and slower, more traditional BBs with large calibre guns and more powerful AP. And there's no reason why the "traditional" ships have to be dull - the archives are full of completely bonkers designs, all of which could be made to work as fantasy ships.

It's not really a British thing, largely because WG has a major downer on those 5.25 inch DP guns. The only one refitted properly was Royal Oak. But even so, after the sinking of Hood, the Admiralty looked at the battleships in their fleet and their vulnerabilities in similar engagements and decided the Revenge class weren't capable of being upgraded to survive action with any modern battleship. Consequently they did everything they could to keep them out of the way. Their existence was useful, but as combat capital ships their viability was very low.

It's a bit unclear, but I think they consider RN DD guns to be AA only if they elevate about 50 degrees (Lightning's guns count, Cossack's don't). The handling of IJN AA is, er, inconsistent. Fubuki, Akatsuki and Shiratsuyu all have the same guns and mounts, it only counts as AA on Akatsuki.

Funnily enough, on rummaging through my book about British BBs I came across a whole pile of designs from the early 1930s for small battleships/super cruisers. This was when the RN were trying to persuade all the other nations to accept a BB as something with guns no bigger than 12 inches and a displacement of around 28-30K tons. Apparently they produced sketches for a small BB with 12 inch guns in ten twin turrets, arranged like a Myoko, and some for a very Odin like BB with twin 12 inch guns and a sizeable torpedo broadside (six tubes per side). Wouldn't mind seeing that being in the game at Tier VII. The 406mm Monarch is the original Lion design, really, and with a normal 30s reload and that class's mobility it might be quite fun to play.

RN Premiums need to offer something different, in the way that Warspite, Hood and Nelson do. I do think that the RN would have adopted a 16in gun calibre for WW2 BBs and that this isn't really reflected in the game (A Hull Lion, isn't it?) - they could definitely do something with that at Tier VII to give the RN similar punch to the Soviets and US BBs. A 3 x 2 16 inch BC with a similar hull form to Hood at Tier VII, or perhaps a slow reload Lion at VIII? I would also suggest a further development of the "large cruiser" lineage of Courageous et al - but then we have Georgia, and isn't that pretty much all you can do with those?

Your average Tier X DD - one without reload booster and 10 torpedoes on a 2 minute reload- can fire around 80 torpedoes in a game. Benham is about 160. Kitakami is 300+ . It's just torp soup.

Stupid ship. Yes, but it was a real ship that only had 40 torpedoes. The darn thing couldn't reload. The torpedo cruiser concept was about being able fire huge torpedo broadsides once, not once every 2 minutes. They can either halve the torpedo load or double the reload time, then we'd have a balanced ship. The ability to division these things, combined with super narrow spreads, is just dumb.

Lots of interesting ideas here, thanks for putting it all down for us to read! If I might add a couple of ideas.. I think the @The_White_Whale is right in the sense that the line needs a hook, a clear purpose. This is especially true above Tier VII, where "slightly better KGVs" don't really make the grade in the face of everyone else's fantasy projects. If the Iowa class - the classic fast battleships - look mediocre at Tier IX what hope do the Brits have? A battlecruiser based line, working on speed. mobility and heavy guns, works fine up to Tier VII. We've seen how ships like Monarch, Odin and the Russian BBs can have their reload and traverse tweaked to provide balance (from 25-35 seconds) so perhaps some of that could allow us to get ships like the Revenge Class. And as you say, a focus on AP over HE would be a nice contrast to the current line. So, if it were me.... Tier II - Canopus. Similar to Mikasa (which was based on the British Formidable class, the successor to Canopus). Purely here for the history. Tier III - Invincible Tier IV - Lion (Premium: Queen Mary) Tier V - Tiger (Premium: Revenge Class with a long 35 second reload) Tier VI - Repulse (Premium: Renown) Tier VII - Anson (Duke of York proposal style BC with a limited, but powerful heal) Tier VIII - Temeraire (Lion class with 406s on a long reload) / (Premium: KGV with a 3 x 4 layout and Monarch reload) Above Tier IX, I think you have to take your cues from the G3 and N3 designs, but with secondary armament and AA which is based on the proposed revisions to HMS Nelson; which essentially meant taking out all the UK designed 6 inch and 4.5 inch guns and replacing with with US 5 inch twin turrets and *squillions* of Bofors guns. Not a pompom in sight. Names? Ships from the line of battle at Trafalgar: Defence, Leviathan, Belleisle, Colossus, Britannia, Mars.

Certainly do. And the road signs are all in miles and yards, and almost no-one can remember how many yards are in a mile. If you want to work in metric measures you'll have to drive a few miles to France. And on the subject of France, it was perfectly possible to shell Dover from Northern France, which is about 20 miles - and according to this link: https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Cross-Channel_guns_in_the_Second_World_War - some of the German railway guns shelled Chatham, which is 75 miles from the French coast.

Well, gosh.

1 yard = 3ft 3ft = 36 inches 1 inch = 2.54 cm 1 yard = 36 x 2.54 = 91.44 cm So 26,000 yards is about 23.6km.

Cheers for getting that sorted, and also for the improvements on the German CV aiming issue.

They've had rental periods for premium ships, some were free, some were paid. I would quite like that for Coal, too - I am currently sitting on enough for any high tier Coal ship but am not entirely sure which one to get....

They can if they are played badly. Pensa's weakness (compared to New Orleans, anyway) is that her central citadel deck is 25mm, which means you can be overmatched by plunging fire from 15 inch guns upwards (and there are quite a few of those at her Tier)... so that bad concealment puts you in great danger, at ranges where you can still be dev struck. It's also why kiting away can be dangerous, you think you've got away with it, only to get walloped from the last salvo. But she's enjoyable to play if you can give yourself proper exit routes.

Let the secondaries go free! Those are 7.5 inch guns, cruiser main battery calibre. They don't fire fast - about every 25 seconds - and they traverse so slowly you'd have to steer the ship to aim them, Warspite style - but if the ship came with baked in manual secondary control, or just above average major secondary range/dispersion then you'd have something worth playing. Add in her plethora of 3 inch secondaries and decent armour, and she could brawl quite well. It's worth WG having a think about, for sure. We don't have any "big gun" cruisers at lower tiers, largely because of the mixed battery issue but there are plenty of interesting ships being excluded as a result. Surely the original Scharnhorst/Gneisenau would be popular and sell? They could complete the Royal Navy CA line with Hampshire and Warrior, and there's all manner of other entertaining ones (Blucher, Rurik esp).

If you want some nostalgia, buy the Indianapolis. It didn't get buffed when the other US CAs did, so it still has light cruiser armour. Fun and engaging, especially at Tier VI with Sinop and the like about.

Yes, and it helps. New Orleans has certainly benefitted from the recent changes. It does now have a measure of "heaviness" and survivability which helps it be fun to play. The US CA line is nicely consistent now - certainly better than that wonky line they initially had. Would any one put up with a line that went Omaha(V)/Cleveland (VI)/Pensacola (VII) these days?

It's usually the player hovering at the back in a Premium ship, not really knowing what they're doing, hoping that their purchase will have made their life easier. In truth I think the OP's idea is flawed because it's not really possible to turn off the stuff that's in your head, i.e. game experience, tactical knowledge. You can take out a Tier III destroyer, stock, without camo and with a low tier captain if you want to see how it works. Unless you make a complete misplay you will do fine (although you may be bested by the people who lurk down there with 1000s of games, 19pt captains, Division mates, and an in-depth knowledge of every nook and cranny of the Big Race map). What I do think would be constructive, however, is for experienced players to re-roll and go through the new player experience, without premium time and all the accumulated resources you have from being a long-term player. It's often an eye opener how many games you have to play in a stock ship with the basic rewards, how much difference captain skills make, and how difficult it can be if, like the player Ocsimano mentions, you like to play a variety of ships rather than concentrating on developing a single line. Most of the time, in that scenario, you'll hit Tier V and VI with a 3-5pt captain, which can be a problem.

Its current form is probably a little too good for Tier VI, especially for a ship which was (historically) famous for being very lightly armoured.

This is like the Spanish Inquisition. The two main reasons for my incompetence were... An almost total ignorance of game mechanics A lack of strategic thinking and the Ability to make the wrong decision when reacting to events (hold on, I'll come in again)...

Yes, but the right tactics come from understanding the mechanics of the game. And I know that my original time playing the game (first year or so) was based on complete incomprehension of both, resulting in stats that were deep cherry red (just take a look at how I played in Japanese cruisers). I should have also added "you must use torpedoes if you have them" to the list of bad things to do, as that was a real problem. Got myself killed so many times doing that!

Well, alright then. I can definitely help with this. 1 - Fire "generally". What you're trying to simulate is a complete lack of judgement about specific parts of the ship and where to fire. 2 - Think reality. Battleship belt armour is thicker than it is anywhere else, so why hide it? 3 - Be too brave. 4 - ...but then run away as soon as everything starts to go wrong. 5 - Ignore captain skills. Or just pick the "wrong" ones. 6 - Play without a camo. 7- Put out the first fire. 8 - Be unware of the red ships and their properties. And you'd be me, really. There is one other thing - And that's the bit you can't simulate.- It's the ability to unremittingly make the wrong calls under pressure.

Smolensk is a lot better than it was, and it's a Special, not a Premium ship, it can be changed again to suit. The others seem powerful but not as trolly or plain OP as the ones I listed. Recent stuff like Pommern, Odin, London, Loewenhardt, Champagne, Mainz, Ochakov - these are all decently balanced, and where they have let things get out of hand - hello Benham - they've been so difficult to get that the ship numbers don't have the impact that those cash shop mistakes had.

WG are a heck of a lot better at balancing the new ones, to be honest. We've not had a Belfast/Kamikaze/Guilio Cesare/Mikael Kutuzov fiasco for a while.