invicta2012

The OP does have a point, though. In isolation, each of these things might not be such a huge problem as they are if they are introduced all together. This combination is probably the biggest change to high Tier gameplay since the game came out of beta.

The planes do hit very hard but their aiming reticle takes an age to settle. It's probably the worst Premium Tier VIII CV, tbh. Even the much maligned Graf Zep is easier to use.

The sinking of HMS Coventry is relevant here - I mentioned that the RN was deploying Type 42 and Type 22 ships together to provide a more integrated defence but technical failures on both ships radar tracking systems, along with mechanical problems with close-in weapons, let some ageing Skyhawks in to make a bombing run on Coventry. It is very likely that something similar happened to Moskva, and she was lost because her missile defence systems did not function properly or because of a lack of crew readiness (another common factor in ship losses). Another lesson from the Falklands was that 70s and 80s ships do not stand fires well - they tend to have been made with materials which burn strong and hot and release horribly toxic fumes while doing so, especially things like power cable insulation and trunking, making fire control exceptionally difficult - it's worth noting that all of the ships lost by the Royal Navy in the Falklands War were lost to fires or magazine explosions which happened subsequent to missile strikes or bomb hits. Fires on board ship are a nightmare. There's always an element "There but for the grace of god..." to these things and regardless of their Government's cause and the previous actions of the ship, I can't help but feel an element of sympathy for the crew and their families.

Tarigo would make a very good Division ship, playing in a supporting role and using her guns to pick off damaged opponents. But she struggles to carry. If you take her out in Narai you realise that her guns make you get uncomfortably close to the enemy, especially when you don't have hydro to warn you of incoming torps. It's a bit like the reality, really, when Tarigo was sunk by a force of RN J and Tribal Class Destroyers which outspotted and outgunned her (she did manage to sink one of the five attacking RN destroyers but her convoy and escorting DDs were all lost). Cuniberti (the Tier VIII) does feel a little more comfortable and I think the playstyle does come together more completely at higher Tiers, though. Completely agree about the Captain skills needing to compensate for the ships' deficiencies, and if I see an Italian ship without Sansonetti in the mix I will be amazed - I think I need a dozen clones of him to compensate for these ships' weaknesses. It seems that all the Italian lines suffer from the situational nature of SAP, which is a shame - such handsome ships saddled with iffy mechanics. The premium is the same - I would have preferred a proper Navigatori with proper gun range, HE/AP and Soviet style short range/heavy hitting torpedoes (6km, maybe)? - rather than the gimmick x2 we got.

Certainly does. The sinking of the Belgrano kept the Argentinian Navy in port for the rest of the war. This included their aircraft carrier, which denied their occupying forces a significant proportion of their possible air forces. Given the excellence of the Argentinian air force in that war it was a major blow. The loss of the Moskva points to problems with Russian Navy defence against land-to-sea missiles of the kind the Royal Navy experienced in the Falklands. After the sinking of Sheffield the RN had to deploy ships in pairs as they'd realised that neither the Type 42 Destroyer or the Type 22 Frigate was up to the job of defence against both aircraft and guided missiles, and you'd expect the Russian Navy to be thinking along the same lines following this sinking. Quite some significant naval action in the India/Pakistan conflicts in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_Naval_War_of_1971. Some familiar WW2 era ships involved, a Battle Class Destroyer and one of the numerous ex-RN carriers which seem to be the mainstay of "smaller nation" naval aviation for the latter part of the 20Cth.

Coming SOON*

You want a German one for that.

Isn't there a Coal one? Immelman or something? I'm sympathetic to CV Mains and not getting any type of event or similar to aim for but I think WG knows that events which skew gameplay really badly (i.e. sink 50 Soviet ships) are not fun for the players who are on the receiving end. I think a Campaign would be nice, though, perhaps timed to coincide with Super CVs? A history of Naval Aviation from the Biplane to the Jet Age, where the player would have to use historic ships and planes, perhaps with reference to the major CV engagements of the era. I enjoyed the "Five Epochs of the Navy" one and it would be nice to see some more context on things like Pearl Harbor, Taranto, Midway, Philippine Sea, the Channel Dash, sinking of the Repulse/Prince of Wales/Bismarck/Yamato etc. Rewards could be captains based on major CV related figures (Mitsuo Fuchida, Wade McClusky, Richard Best, Eugene Esmonde, Eric Brown, etc) and perhaps a unique CV or two (Hiryu? Saratoga?) - just something to work towards over time if CVS are something you enjoy.

I don't. I thought that was pretty clear from my last sentence. Well, CVs are why I haven't played randoms in nearly three years. It just got boring being CV food. And it seems as if WG intends there to be no escape from that type of experience.

Many games end up with a two tier playerbase composed of new players and hardcore ones. New players need new hooks/new gimmicks, the hardcore need to be the best and will just jump from ship to ship depending on what keeps them top of the leaderboard. Anything which doesn't do that is trash/discard/why bother? So I can see why WG is making this content. But what's disappointing is that they're making this future happen by believing that nothing else is possible; burning through ship lines in weeks when it used to be months' worth of content, refusing to make new ways to play (rather than new things to play) and making it so that jumping on board to play the meta-defining ships is the only way to get good results. I find it boring, I play less, I spend less, and the game's development path (Subs, SuperCVs, Superships) is sterile, ahistorical, and alienating.

Yes, I saw that. I don't really like it, though, as I preferred the "authentic" camo patterns on the original planes. The only way to get those (that I can see) is to not have a camo on at all. Some of the new options are, er, interesting. For example: my Ark Royal is now home to 801 Goth Squadron. How much more black could it be?

They criticised Discord. There will be repercussions. Any hoo. The OP has clearly spent their cash without realising Hornet had Tier VI Torp planes and a few mitigating gimmicks (flight size, repair consumable). As those planes are really slow it might be worth maxing out their speed boost rather than taking armour. Oh, and while I'm here: I just looked at my Ranger. What *have* they done with the plane camos and is there any way of turning it off? I liked those Yellow-Winged Devastators....

Not convinced, personally. The guns don't cross any important Armour thresholds, the HE is weaker than Nelson, and it doesn't look as is they've done much to change Nelson's deficiencies (which include bow tanking). The lower number of shells will also, most likely, take away Nelson's hard-punching nature; she has to make every salvo count, it doesn't look as if Collingwood will.

Ibuki and Drake. Carnot is a bit disappointing and Agir is a bit too big.

They already *have* gone nuts. Conqueror and Thunderer are made-up spin offs of Vanguard and KGV, completely unlike anything the Royal Navy considered building. They're just based on sketches and meeting minutes : Director Of Naval Intelligence: The Germans are building ships with 20 inch guns and half an aircraft carrier on the back. How can we match this? Director of Naval Construction (dutifully considering all requests, no matter how stupid): it would be around the size of Wales and take 10 years to build. In the event of War it would make a useful means of blockading the English Channel. Director of Plans: Why? Director of Naval Construction: It won't fit. First Sea Lord (if Jacky Fisher): will it go faster if we make it out of tin foil? First Sea Lord (if Andrew Cunningham): I've told you before, stop this nonsense. etc etc If you want to see some actual RN designs, lookie here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/royal-navy-lion-class-battleship-series-1938-1945.32456/ The B and X classes are most likely for a BC line - and they had very odd armour layouts based on defending against aircraft and torpedoes more than surface ships.

Good main battery accuracy but secondaries would be poor - they're Leander turrets on those designs. These are ships which live and die by having decent stealth, an accurate main battery, and enough speed to disengage if they need to. Very much in the Renown/Hood/Constellation mould. Any "secondary" RN ships would be based on the actual 1940s RN BB designs, post Lion, all of which had something like 12 4.5" turrets; basically 2 Darings down each side. Other thoughts: the Proper Tiger! Any chance of a mid-Tier premium? HMS Spurious* - Renown with three single 18" turrets at Tier VI - would be wonderful. (That was *Furious' nickname, btw) Rooke? Never a capital ship name. Benbow, Cornwallis, Exmouth, Russell are all much better.

1920 will meet 1960? Hardly. Tiger was laid down in 1941 and is a slightly tweaked Fiji. St Vincent is just a G3, and spectacularly fugly with it. I think the problem with that pic is that her superstructure was a hexagon and they've given it the clean lines of the original design without all the bridge wings and whatnot that Nelson had.

Yet another aprilian devblog.... I saw that episode of Star Trek. The Aprilian ships have great potential but never seem to work properly. And they *never* should have asked the Ferengi to run the business side of the operation...

They've got that wrong, then. One star is a footnote.

Moggie (with the 155mm guns) is a great ship for PVE - Atago is also superb, as is Tone. (Tone is possibly the most absurd ship in the whole of WoWS, btw, and just worth purchasing for the glee of a heavy cruiser with Nelson's gun layout, Fubuki's torpedoes and a set of torpedo bombers to boot).

Fat Nelse is a great deal of fun, and I think anyone collection minded would probably want the ship. I'd say 20K+ winning bid?

Not fun to play, not fun to play against, another layer of complexity which has overloaded the game UI and the players. I've given up testing the darn things, but occasionally I have to play against them and they are still as irritating AF. When playing them, the main problem is that they are just a grab bag of fabricated mechanics and no longer resemble anyone's actual concept of submarine warfare. No stealth. No skill. No suspense. WG is trying to make them into an all action class, not a stealthy ninja. Ping ping ping pew pew pew. When playing against them, WGs design of counterplay is as bad as ever, but the main problem here is no room in the game - people are already tired of the pestering of CV attacks and the way that permaspotting and constant harassment neutralises all the enjoyable qualities of surface ships. So in terms of this thread... back to first principles. Subs should be a BB/DD hybrid with a slow build up to potentially heavy strikes against opponents who misplay, overextend, sail in straight lines, etc. Remove sonar from surface warfare, conventional torp detection mechanics are enough. Subs should be vulnerable themselves, and their defence should largely depend on the strategic use of consumables (rather like Italian DDs with their Emergency Speed Boosts, Smoke Screens etc). Their main enemy should be Destroyers and, when surfaced, CVs. As much thought needs to go into the counterplay for surface ships as it does into sub design. It can't be a game defining class of enemy.

Huang He is different to Perth (I actually prefer her gunnery, which is very hard-hitting on the low-Tier cruisers found in Ops). However I would question whether there's anything there you can't get from Leander. The same applies to lots of other premium cruisers - La Gal is as good as De Grasse, Devonshire as good as London, Nurnberg as good as Makarov or Molotov. I play CVS in Ops a lot - Ark Royal is very good (although her planes are slow, and the torpedo playstyle can also be had from Ryujio), Bearn is an interesting one which doesn't play like any other CV. For DDs, Aigle is splendid. BBs... not sure PEF's secondaries are all that, really. I would probably go with either Warspite (accurate, hits hard), Mutsu (good range, torpedoes are very handy) or Ise (which is a good BB as well as having the torpedo flight).

Yes. She wrecks destroyers in a way that no other CV can. It's true that other CVs are better at damaging cruisers and BBs but killing DDs is key to success in Newport and Raptor, so you will get a better WR as a result of bringing this ship, Ark Royal and Loewenhardt are also very good in their own ways (torpedoes and rocket planes) and also worth purchasing, though - if you enjoy CVs in Ops then they are all worthwhile.

I was looking at my port this morning and considering the wide range of German Battleships it contains, and how much I enjoy playing them. I have a PEF, Scharnhorst, Zieten, Odin, Brandenburg, Bismarck, Tirpitz, FdG and Pommern, and could happily have more. They are well-balanced, have unique characteristics and are always fun to play. And then I think of Gneisenau. Which isn't fun to play. (and I ground it out before its dispersion got buffed, when it was very *not* fun to play). And the more I think of it, the more I see it as a total outlier in the German BB line. It doesn't fit between Bayern and Bismarck in the Tech Tree - it's not a sturdy brawler, doesn't have hydro, ends up with a strange/unique secondary armament of 128mm DD guns and as a BC feels like an odd, and rather incompetent duck next to Scharnhorst and Zieten. I'm not too familiar with the history of German BB development but I wonder if it wouldn't be better to replace Gneis with an intermediate Bayern-Bismarck design and push the Gneis off into being a Premium VII BC, perhaps giving her the 10-12km torps from the BC line and some secondary buffs to make her an interesting counterpart to Scharnhorst?