HaachamaShipping

-no HE -sAP, which according to Devblog has no improved bounce angles -no hydro -no defAA -gimmick smoke -long reload, high alpha -Italian 12 km meme torps I do hope there'll be changes during the development, because I cannot see this work out. Gimmick smoke is not a replacement for hydro, their AA is Italian, so piss poor, having to rely on these torpedoes to deal with anything that rushes you angled is just silly and Zara at T7 would neither get torpedoes nor anything beyond 25 mm armour, so, well... Time to get drunk and hope WG comes up with solutions that work. But given the record... yeah, time to get wasted.

The issue with your thought is, Bismarck in a T10 game, to be competitive, only has to be as useful as the enemy T8 BB. So, you compete with ships like Amagi (which has better guns, but is way more susceptible to getting HE spammed to death), Richelieu (less dpm, less tanky) or Vladivostok (bigger guns, but giant citadel, worse armour than Bismarck). Meanwhile Kurfürst competes with their T10 counterparts, so Yamato (overmatches most other BBs and actually is way more accurate. Amagi is 1.8 sigma like Bismarck, but better base dispersion. Yamato has the better base dispersion, but also the best BB sigma in the game), Republique (overmatches any cruiser, highly accurate) and Kremlin (60 mm plating that cannot be HE penned by most cruisers and cannot be overmatched by Yamato). And they all get reload mod too. So, you either get to terms with Bismarck, quit the line or you'll eventually sit there with Kurfürst in port, just to realise the experience you have is even worse.

Only DoY has hydro aside from German BBs. And that's mid-tier. Bismarck is a solid ship. If you don't find Bismarck competitive, then don't move on. Everything thereafter is just more extreme versions of this. If you feel like your T8 in a T10 match is not able to play to its strengths, how do you expect to get anything out of Großer Kurfürst, which is just as much of a brawler, has similar strengths and weaknesses, but where people expect you to actually leave an impact as a ship that always will be top tier?

It isn't shown in port in its full relevance. You get shell velocity, but not air drag, etc. Overall though, shell velocity matters, as it has advantages and disadvantages.

It's hard, not impossible. And obviously Des Moines with improved pen angles will not care, just like Stalingrad and Alaska.

Des Moines already has 30 mm deck. Des Moines currently is a cruiser that excels at mid and short range, because of its mediocre shell velocity and high dpm, so it can just pump ships full of super-heavy AP shells that have improved ricochet angles and win. Hindenburg meanwhile is a ship that is kinda "Jack of All Trades, Master of None", with having mediocre HE dpm, but unlike Des Moines, it has the shell velocity to effectively engage ships at range and at 15 km, a Hindenburg has good chances of winning a gun fight with a Des Moines, just because of the better ballistics (same as how Henri, Zao and even Yoshino can do a pretty solid number on a Des Moines at those ranges). Hindenburg also has German 50 mm HE pen and in a brawl below 6 km, it gets 8 torps per side with very aggressive angles, so in such brawls it also has decent chances against Des Moines (and any other cruiser) and especially against BBs (pushing a Des Moines in a Montana means it might take out a few k of your hp before it eats citadels through the bow. Hindenburg meanwhile can sink your ship with the torp knockout punch). Des Moines citadel also is much larger.

Mikhail Kutuzov and Irian are ingame and didn't get 50 mm plating, so yeah.

More noteworthy than pointlessly being able to overmatch the 30 mm plating (which will never give you added citadels, only added normal pens and no-damage pens), Georgia secondaries will pen Azuma everywhere, but 30 mm on Yoshino is immune (and the ship has a pretty small superstructure, so anything hitting amidships has low chances of doing anything) and in a brawl, Yoshino has 8 torps per side that can delete your BB. If you get too cocky and fail to get your citadels with your 6 shells, you might as well end up the one being sunk.

No difference, as 457 overmatches the 30 mm same as if they were 25 mm.

T8-10 CLs get the same penetration as they already have, while they get armour plating amidships that is better, while their extremities are going to be crap. I'm still not convinced they'll put 30 mm on Mino, as that'd be simply stupid. CLs will however lose half their fire chance now. Heavy cruisers lose nothing and the Hindenburg will be the only non-supercruiser at T10 able to pen 50 mm. Meanwhile, at T6-7, CLs get absolutely screwed over, as they cannot pen T8 BBs ever, they cannot pen T6 BBs without IFHE and they lose most of their fire chance for taking IFHE, so while currently a Helena can do decent damage against a Monarch, from this change onwards, Helena can only pen the superstructure and will have fire chances akin to a Duca. Not to mention, it can get its bow overmatched by a Myoko. Certainly, heavy cruisers are suffering vs light cruisers here.

Yes.

If a BB shoots the midsection of your ship, either your supercruiser is not angled enough for 30 mm to matter or the shell will bounce off the citadel resulting in normal pens, if not no-damage pens due to spaced armour. At pretty much no point does Azuma eat a citadel where Yoshino eats none. Yoshino just eats less normal pens from hits on the deck and upper belt.

I considered it for the 5 seconds that it took to remember upcoming IFHE nerfs.

Slot 1 is either Main Armaments Mod or Spotter Plane Mod. Spotter plane was in the past a better option, because it provided range and it provided spotting. Part of what makes Belfast so strong is the ability to 20 s radar targets, spotting for herself from smoke. Perth has a long-lasting spotter plane that could do basically that too. With the drastic reduction of aerial detection that value goes down obviously and fighter is very valid air defense now. Overall, both options are worthwhile though.

At least Germans got secondaries that can deal with stuff at closer range. Montana cannot boast that. Izumo secs aren't capable of that either. Lion and Conq basically have to rely on main battery HE and while Georgia and Ohio benefit from still being able to overmatch 30 mm plating on the four cruisers that did not have it already (Mino, Worcester, DM/Salem), their secondaries suddenly fall off from 27 mm pen to 25 mm pen, which means German and USN high tiers, as well as all BBs in their MM spread (given T6-7 gets raised to 26 mm) are no longer pennable. As they don't have French fire chance nor German pen, that's a massive nerf. Far worse, imo, than the few more 30 mm plating cruisers.

This was the greatest day, until I learned KyoAni burned down. Still...

Uhm, Khaba repair?

Electronic Counter-Measures lead to Electronic Counter-Counter-Measures. The best defense against missiles are active defenses, so something to shoot missiles down. And for the kind of engagements where you need a gun, there is that 5 inch gun, which typically has a RoF of 40-60 rpm. Cruiser classification fell out of use for the most part as there just was no real basis for differentiation as destroyers became larger and all of the ships had similar missions. A Ticonderoga-class cruiser is not really much larger than an Arleigh Burke, indeed, it is a Spruance-class hull, which was a destroyer. Battleships would not be useless, but are not cost effective, especially not for peacetime navies. Using merchant ships as combattants today is as legally questionable as it was in WWII and while concepts exist, they are more for Russian-style operations that defy international law than navies of countries who give a damn about staying internationally credible. And even Russia likely ran out of money to fund this stuff, but there's dozens of people on youtube who get off to that kinda stuff. Carriers and submarines.

Type 055 is about as good, though it really depends on what the ships carry in their VLS. Overall, the Maya-class will not go against the Type 055 in a 1v1 ever and there's a myriad of surrounding assets, ranging from naval aviation, to other vessels to land-based assets in form of aircraft, missiles and radar. Guns cost money. One or two 5-inch guns are often what most navies settle for on a ship, because they can provide some support and are dual purpose. Some like the USN add some ships with larger guns (e.g. Zumwalt-class with 2 155 mm guns), but typically, it seems to not be worth it really. These capabilities are typically more valued for naval gunfire support, aka shore bombardement in support of landing operations or operations along a coastline. and that would require steering your ship close to a shoreline, where land-based artillery and missiles, as well as low-flying aircraft can pick them off. There's a reason the Zumwalt were conceived as combining advanced stealth with the Advanced Gun System firing guided shells out to 100 nm.

When going up against a BB, what is going to save you more? 4k more hp or a smoke and a set of torps per side? I'm not saying Huanghe isn't suffering, but there's ships that are way worse off. I personally would even prefer Huanghe arcs, because it means at midranges you can start shooting AP, if you need some direct damage fast, something Dallas sucks at, given the AP doesn't do crap with those shell speeds. Also, 14.3 km range on Dallas isn't exactly saving the ship either. I'd prefer Huanghe detection that can actually even be used to stealth torp pushing BBs.

I mostly switched from reload to range on Zao, because Zao turrets turned too slowly if I used reload, which is a pain. Imo, both ships Zao and Ibuki can be played also at midrange, as Ibuki isn't much less tanky. It has a 30 mm deck after all and you don't get hit that often on the side on Zao/Ibuki to make the difference noteworthy (though overall, neither likes to eat shells and is best played with dodging in mind). I use concealment mod on all of these IJN cruisers, including Yoshino, as it brings concealment down to cruiser levels. This was more of a response to "Henri can just rush it down". If Henri rushes you in a Yoshino, you don't get the choice of what range to fight at, but you also don't have to get overly worried, as cruisers rushing you is about the best case scenario, vs cruisers kiting you at range. As stated in my first post, Yoshino still struggles vs (well-played) conventional cruisers, but much less so than any other supercruiser. 20 km. They are more usable as area denial drops and in a torp brawl, it's about torping when the enemy cannot evade, so detectability is a non-issue. For randoms, it's kinda ok, for CB, I'd not use it, as it offers nothing Henri/Hindenburg do better, except 20 km torp spam. Which isn't worth it. If you want to buff the ship though, it definitely doesn't need more Zao-like armour, but it either needs the citadel drastically lowered (which is hardly going to happen) or it needs a better frontal protection so overmatches on the bow are less likely to go straight through the frontal citadel bulkhead into the citadel (which Zao can suffer from too, but it's a smaller ship with smaller citadel). Failing that, a rudder shift buff. In general, I think if WG gave Yoshino a LU akin to the Zao one, that'd be nice, though with like -7% reload instead of the extra range.

Yes, it was needed, because current HE pen rules don't allow penning 25 mm with 152 mm guns, only 24 mm. That's why IFHE on T6 and T7 wasn't just a luxury pick, but especially on T7 was a necessity to deal with T6s. The fact you still need it and now you get less done is just ridiculous. At least Huanghe has torps. Imagine being a Dallas, Helena, Boise or Belfast.

[POI--] wishes nice summer holidays.

That's about as much a functional "free market" as monopolies are.

How you can hit stuff at range with an Ibuki, but not a Zao is a mystery to me. Played Ibuki with reload mod, 16.5 km and spotter plane works just fine. Zao with range mod, 18.8 km and spotter plane is no issue. Zao has great ballistics, I don't think you find a cruiser other than maybe Stalingrad or Moskva that are as good at shooting at these distances. In CB, Yoshino's issue is not that it has to back off. armour-wiser, it's not worse than a Henri or Des Moines most of the time and against cruisers, the citadel isn't an issue. What is an issue is that it lacks the dpm to compete on equal footing, other cruisers will often melt it. Just like 1v1, Stalingrad cannot win against most cruisers unless they present you enough broadside for easy cits. Also, Worcester isn't crap due to armour (for T10, it is more survivable than Des Moines), but due to ballistics. A Worcester at best camps some island and spams while others spot for it, but if caught out, any cruiser like Hindenburg, Moskva, Zao, Henri can just leverage the ballistics advantage to murder the Worcester from range. Also, it has worse radar than Des Moines and the AP is useless most of the time. In cruiser vs cruiser fights, there is no range for Yoshino that is better than mid to short range, unless it's vs a Des Moines, Salem or Worcester where it has to leverage the ballistics. But if you were to ask me at what range I'd want to fight any other cruiser, it'd basically be 6-7 km, because that's where Yoshino starts getting better dispersion than actual cruisers other than Zao, cruisers cannot citadel it through bow or stern and the torpedoes give it a decent close range edge against anyone who really rushes in carelessly. Thus, if an Henri wants to rush my Yoshino, that's basically the worst play that Henri could make, as he throws out any accuracy advantage, as well as any mobility advantage, because at 16 km, Yoshino shoots worse than cruisers and Henri with speedboost can dodge. At 6 km, that Henri eats pretty much most of my shells with no chance of dodging anymore and while Henri has MBRB, he gets one off for the engagement, otherwise Henri matches Yoshino in dpm (it will fall behind once the nerf hits). Yoshino has more hp, so it certainly is not a set victory for the Henri. Also, Yoshino actually has better armour than Zao. What makes the difference is that Yoshino has the huge citadel. But the outer plating is basically the same, with Yoshino getting even some Henri-grade spaced armour for the lulz. And vs cruisers, the differences between Yoshino and Zao only exist if you show broadside. Otherwise, Yoshino for the HE spam is just a larger Zao.