HaachamaShipping

Depends on what is "meaningful". At T6, you have already all the cruisers (except Leander) with defAA, who can thwart your strike and can leave a hole in your aircraft reserve. In T5, you got ships that wil likely eat a torp or bomb, but are not going to die to it and will kill a good few aircraft in the process for a same tier carrier. Combined with a Zuihou (Bogue cannot even crosstorp to guarantee a hit) having limited reserves and time, it's questionable whether it is actually worth it. I had games where a CV tried to kill my Bretagne three times and all he got for it was 11 torp bombers lost and not a single torp hit, because these 21 knot dreadnoughts turn too fast. Had he gotten one, I wouldn't have cared much either, but the losses, together with the fact that the planes are rather slow (one reason why they are vulnerable while autodropping) makes it that the CV wastes most of its time trying to torp such targets. And you don't even need BFT and AFT for that. As long as autodropping is required, your best bet is likely dropping the Kongo/Myogi, just because they have the worst turning circles. And even then, if you approach them from an angle where they can turn around in time to run off their high speed for a ship, compared to the low speed of those biplanes/early monoplanes is enough to have you lose some planes just to land the odd torp hit if you have to get around to the front first.

So, yesterday, I got from Nürnberg to Yorck. I played a few battles in it, before going to sleep and it didn't go too bad. I knew it has terrible AP performance and works around spamming HE and that kind of works out. Having not much experience with Yorck yet, but having gone through Algerie, may I ask people, do they play alike? Are there any reasons to consider Yorck any better than Algerie, except better hydro (if you don't just go for defAA) instead of the speed boost and getting more torpedoes but garbage AP? I'm mostly asking because I found Algerie... kind of underwhelming. It's ok at setting fires, it has nice handling. It's got range. But the damage is not too great and if you just try farm fire damage all game you have low impact, resulting in frustrating games and terrible winrate. Something like IFHE Shchors has a damage output that really melts BBs, it deletes DDs if it has to and it can go against cruisers with AP, if pressed in the role, thus, I feel like it has much more impact (not going into how much impact premium T7 cruisers with radar have). Algerie... eh. If you do get citadel pens, you can kill cruisers, I guess, but against DDs, don't think there's a less scary T7 cruiser and for BBs, it's mainly the fires that annoy people, but it's healable DoT. and the torp armament is kind of there to annoy people too, but nothing you can use to delete enemies with, like with Shchors quad launcher or the German torpedoes (I'd even give Atlanta better grades in close range torp potential). Is Yorck any better in this regard, or am I to strap in for damage farming and low impact? Or am I just doing it all wrong and there is something I missed that makes these ships actually able to carry their weight more? Both ships look quite nice though.

Well, what I heard was that it had bad dpm, which got slightly buffed a short while ago. I'm actually grinding the line to get to Hipper, though moving further to Roon and Hindenburg I do consider. Given I'm also grinding a few other lines, one has to set priorities.

Indeed, I like the Yorck so far. I liked the Nürnberg too, but the York is a slightly different playstyle, yet with some similarities. The torpedoes are pretty much what makes the Yorck to me more enjoyable than Algerie. With this many torpedoes, you really can go for the kill. Unlike something like Shchors, the ship also isn't massive and is actually maneuverable. Can't wait for Hipper with the 27 mm bow armour.

It doesn't need a genius to figure out that 340 mm guns cannot overmatch 25 mm bow armour, 380 mm and 431 mm cannot overmatch 32 mm bow armour. Regardless of how high penetration the French are, the sole thing they can try to go for on an angled German are disabling gun turrets or shots in the superstructure for some overpens. Add to that that the Lyon has even worse gun characteristics than the Gneisenau and you can guess why any decent Gneisenau has more respect for a Nagato than for a Lyon. And with the whole line being coated in light plating, Bismarck and Friedrich der Große have their 15 cm guns that can penetrate the same tier French anywhere, while the Kurfürst with IFHE eats the Republique alive at close range. Gneisenau doesn't even need IFHE to demolish a Lyon, especially given Lyon would likely try to run off, making it hard to even respond fire with all turrets, as a proper brawl means execution by torpedo. From tier 7 to 10, I would rate the greatest threats as Nagato, Amagi, Musashi, Yamato. The American line and the Brits come next. French is on par with other Germans. Scary when you mess up, but perfectly manageable otherwise.

Free exp'd the rest of Emerald today and bought Leander. It seems the line really starts getting good from here on out.

Atlanta's short range is a bit of an issue, but not breaking the ship. Get AFT to improve the issue a bit, but I find even without (only took CE for now, but I'd say AFT as first 4 pt pick is not a bad thing either), it works out. Given the shell ballistics at range become garbage anyway, it's not a big issue. Atlanta just should not be in the open, unless it can rely on only meeting inferior ships. Typically, you hug islands and spam over them at whatever pushes into your range and you wreck DDs at caps with your guns and radar.

No. Regardless of what WR that cruiser has, if you fly into defAA, expect planes to die. It's the exact thing defAA is supposed to accomplish. Making it hard to kill the ship that has defAA. What's the point in having defAA if it has some silly delay making it potentially useless if someone drops you before it even kicks in? If there are combinations like Belfast or Cleveland with detection range just a bit over radar range or Atlanta, with AA range past air detection, such is a feature and should be addressed for these ships specifically, not damn everyone to have crappy consumables that need a setup timing before being actually useful.

What? That it is better at ranged HE spam farming? Well, compared to a Fiji that has no HE and limited range... Or that you can make more bold plays for the objectives? Well, certainly not in a T9 match, but if you see the opportunity in a match where you are top tier. I had games where I was top tier, snuck up on the cap using islands, then proceeded to kill an enemy DD and a lower tiered cruiser, before fighting it out with another Shchors that was flanking around. With 3 kills and a solocap, I was then a bit low hp and died to flanking BB, but certainly, I'd say I carried my weight and killed at least a same tier cruiser and a valuable Dd. Not the standard way to play the ship, for sure, but a nice change of pace and still valuable, because when you just do damage, the only way to have an impact if you can destroy targets fast enough to matter and/or to make it felt, so that you become an area denial asset (this for example can happen if something like an Atlanta camps a corner and noone wants to push it, because they fear the HE spam, yet you can only dislodge it through a concerted push. Atlanta has radar though, to also scare off DDs).

What? RN CLs with short range, smoke and hydro, excellent maneuverability and all are not just there to shoot some BBs and such, they are there to help get the objective done. Here, this might help: You might notice, the first thing Flamu did was help the DD at the cap. He couldn't secure it, but he sure prevented the enemy from taking it and took out several targets, which were quite high value (like the DD). This kind of play you can't reproduce in any other T7 cruiser, except the Belfast and the Flint (if for some reason you run limited hydro instead of unlimited defAA). The RN CL line, just like the new USN CL line, is good to help secure the objectives and get important targets (DDs) killed.

No, because few other DDs have as great a discrepance in HE damage to aP damage. A Benson has 1,800 HE alpha, compared to 2,100 AP alpha. The Akizuki has 1,200 HE alpha to 1,700 AP alpha. Switching to AP against broadside DDs is a good way to get better results. A graph, courtesy of LWM: Fuze time is likely to remain untouched. Fuze sensitivity is going to get changed, so it is easier set off. This does not change how fast the shells arm nor how much they penetrate, only what armour strength is needed to arm the fuze.

If you want a T7 damage farmer, why not play an Algerie or Shchors instead? Slap IFHE on a Shchors and you can do disgusting damage and set ships ablaze from like 16 km away. Or you go waste the concealment, smoke and maneuverability of a Fiji in order to try do what a Shchors could do better but with only AP ammunition, less range and worse ballistics (not to mention even a Shchors can go and make daring plays around objectives, it just has to be extra careful with it). Meanwhile at T5, noone cares if your cruiser farms damage. Emile Bertin basically is made for that role and the only more sophisticated thing to be done is hunt down DDs with the insane speed and hydro.

German DDs will get fuzes adjusted, according to WG statement. No such statement was made on akizuki.

So, the Akizuki pays for its free IFHE vs DDs with losing the ability to reliably stack AP penetrations on DDs, which likely means that just using HE is more reliable and the preferred option. That can be a significant loss in dpm...

From my experience, French are far from the most frightening opponent on any tier from 7 to 10 for a German BB.

Which makes it somewhat unreliable and better to bait shots at the broadside, as Gneisenau belt actually is thicker than Bismarck belt. Lower bow plating though has a chance to even tank Musashi shells. Similar deal on the Hipper btw, though Hipper lower bow is only 40 mm, but that is sufficient to bounce 460 mm at the waterline. Hipper does have better upper bow belt though, able to tank 38 cm shells.

Given how much damage ties into XP, not really. It's the exact reason why people are pissed at star-savers in Ranked who did ship all to contribute to the win, thus losing the game, but because they survived longest and farmed damage they got the most exp and kept their star, while folks who tried to play the objective and died unsupported lose out.

In equal skill, Amagi. Hindenburg likely has best chances at range, trying to apply its more consistent dpm while trying to dodge salvos, because going for a torp run just means eating all the 41 cm shells up close that overmatch the armour. Torping an Amagi that is aware of the torp threat also is hard (it is fast and can kite) and even if the odd torp hits, Amagi has great torpedo protection.

Yes, Yorck AP becomes crap fast past 10 km. I made a training room to test the AP performance against same tier cruisers and the only thing that too citadels up to pretty much 12 km was broadside Shchors. Yorck is around 8 km, Myoko is around 7, NO and Algerie hold up best, with NO having only taken citadels at very close range and Algerie having never taken a citadel at all (it eventually died to normal AP pens). Up to 10 km, you can also hurt BBs with standard penetrations. Algerie also has better fire chance, I think. In battle, I so far prefer the Yorck. Main reason for that being that with German hydro, I feel more able to provide utility and with 4x3 torpedoes (6 per side), going for a brawl is actually viable, whereas an Algerie has a harder time at that. I bet there are those who'll think Algerie is better overall (and they might not be wrong), but while in Algerie I managed to get a ton of losses, so far, Yorck seems to work out and I'm only about to get the B hull and thus have a fully fitted out ship.

I think the main reason they are becoming unpopular past Akizuki is the underwhelming concealment, combined with cruiser maneuverability and slow speed. Also a sixtuple launcher that'll need ages to reload. And making non-IFHE viable does not fix any of the other issues of the line.

Germans aren't really that hard. Especially not something like Bismarck. Germans likely are the easiest line if you are dumb, because worse accuracy only punishes right aim in the first place and the turtleback prevents broadside citadels (you shouldn't show broadside anyway). When in Germans though, I don't really care too much for the French, because frankly, at no tier can they overmatch their German peers and if you angle, most of the scariness goes away. And the last bit vanishes when you get into secondary range, because the only thing French secondaries (if your opponent actually invests in them) will do is set fire, while yours actually can go through their crappy plating. Lyon is likely the one BB I fear least as a Gneisenau. It shoots. Thanks for the potential damage.

This would imply premiums have broken performance characteristics. So, guess how likely it is to ever happen.

They won't easily eat a citadel through the bow, but you just raise your aim and go for normal penetrations that hurt too. And rarely, they do eat citadels through the bow from close up. Once had a Gneisenau chase my Friedrich der Große at less than 9 km (my non-AFT secondaries at the time opened up) and I got a citadel shot at him with the 406 mm guns, straight through the upper bow plating and the forward bulkhead.

That's just one of the many misplays people make. It got worse with the release of the British BBs, because that encouraged it, but by itself, it's no more silly than having a carrier that can't strafe, having a DD that refuses to spot and cap for no good reason or having a cruisers torp from the second line. And by itself, HE firing BBs don't really make people quit. Running into RN BBs and not knowing what to do can make new players quit. It is hard to understand if you do not provide much else on what point you are trying to make. If you just bring an anecdote of your experiences, it is open to interpretation and could just as well read "You say there's HE firing BBs, but look, I'm not an HE firing BB, because I'm smarter than that."

Mino has 152 mm caliber. Still bounces. 203 mm i where the difference is.