HaachamaShipping

Finally got Kongou yesterday night. Still stock, but already awesome. The 25 knots speed are a bit of a downgrade from fully upgraded Myogi, but it's decent enough and I don't feel slow. The AA is crap, but Myogi's AA was (while better) nothing to be excited about either and you just have to dodge. Sole effective defense. The guns are a mixed bag. The ship has four gun turrets, which are comparable to Myogi's, so obviously 25% more broadside power, but C turret has a traverse range that is quite retarded and can't point forward. So, frontally it's only minimally better. I'm actually trying to get hull upgrade first, because I can make do with 25 knots speed and the already great range, but I really want that C turret fixed and the added AA, better rudder shift, health and slightly increased range are good too. Overall, I loved my Myogi, I already like the Kongou. Most likely only going to sell Myogi, once I go on to get Fusou and pass on the commander. They are both so flexible and awesome ships. Hoping that Amagi, the third IJN battlecruiser in the BB line will be fun too, once I get there in a year or so. On accuracy, I got a hit ratio of 22%, according to statistics, which isn't outstanding. At closer ranges though, I find the guns to behave quite well though. If I find the proper lead, at 12 km or so, shots usually land roughly where I aimed them and do 3-5k damage or a citadel hit for 10k. Definitely seems better than my Myogi there. Also, one sore spot, the turret traverse is horrendous. But, it's not ruining the ship at least.

As far as you know. I'd guess at tier X we'll get some obscure and up to now unknown latewar cruiser design WG has dug out from the Neue Reichskanzlei, drawn up by Hitler and Raeder in their megalomania and denial of the reality of a lost war and meaningless surface fleet. It will have some 203 mm guns (or 280 mm guns, if WG decides to give German cruisers such high-caliber weaponry) and a good few of them, with a few torps and a speed of over 30 knots. God knows what trick it'll have up its sleeve to deal with Zao and Des Moines.

O-class with its 38 cm guns would be a battlecruiser and thus in the BB line. And come on, pure stats-wise, it's a slightly better C-hull Myogi with torps. It'd be completely underwhelming, when you consider that compared to the Amagi-class BC, the O-class is about as large a target, with slightly more speed, but 6 38 cm guns vs Amagi's 10 41 cm guns. Even if they fire faster like on Bismarck, the DPM would be atrocious for tier X.

Oh my god, the Cleveland has such low shell velocity, what a crap cruiser it is... How dare it have some faults! If you think Cleveland is so goddamn bad, go play a Furutaka or Aoba, with a turret traverse that is measured in centuries and far easier to hit citadels.

I think that's really not an issue of the Albany. If the rest of the team can see the enemy, but you can't that's hardly related to the ship. It happened to me at times, which is annoying, but can occur in all kinds of ships.

I think I had that with my Umikaze once. Got me also the Liquidator, for sinking an enemy ships with at least 40% of their HP dealt in flooding damage. But yeah, fires and flooding count for "Just a flesh wound".

Is Sit. Awareness in BBs really worth that much? I for my part didn't get it, instead went for the repair time decrease, fire chance decrease, high alert and saving points for other skills now. I just deemed it kind of strange, because unless you are sneaking around islands or hanging around with the carriers, in a BB I just assume to be always visible, given surface detection range is the highest of all ship types. And once one opens fire, it's hard to not be spotted. I'd usually just randomly adjust course or speed slightly, keep an eye open for torpedos and if I dodge a spread, well I know a DD is close. I can even guess their direction, something where Situational Awareness doesn't help much.

Admittedly, I'm not a homeless person starving to death, but making a decent living still, but I can tell from personal experience, you don't need a great computer or even a great internet connection to play this game, if you can put up with minimal graphics settings. And just because you got that doesn't mean people will start spending money for port slots, because some are hesitent to spend money, just alone because what if it gets out of hand. I may personally fork over the money for a port slot at some point, when I feel it necessary, but I'm not going to say anyone who just sold the Albany made a bad decision. It isn't a great ship. It's a beautiful ship, it is a premium ship, it is a ship some perform well in, but it is not a good ship and not a ship that everyone may enjoy. Some like a challenge, in which case the Albany is pretty much a handicapped Chester. I personally use it only for co-op, when I get frustrated in random battles and need some small and easy ship action to get into a better mood again. Also, most people in co-op are kind of nice or at least quiet in chat.

Well, American DDs need advanced ambush skills to work, which is known. You can't expect to just openly sail up to an unoccupied BB of a decent player and have a fun time torpedoing them. Most often they'll start maneuvering, throwing HE shells of 300+ mm caliber at you (now with even more accuracy) and if you are getting within short enough range, inaccurate barrages of HE come flying. You just aren't Japanese, you can't torp from the safety of not being seen. To approach enemy BBs, you just need to use conceilment (islands) and if you don't want to get their main battery on you, try to find a BB that is occupied with a target or has their guns pointing in the other direction. Chances are, you can outrun the turret traverse, if you are good enough and don't get one-shotted. If the BB is in open waters without concealment. Well, can't fault a battleship for doing the right thing and increasing their chances of survival.

1. Turret traverse is slow, but what do you expect? Yamato's triple 46 cm/45 caliber gun turrets weigh about as much as your average destroyer. BBs aren't fast to react, so it requires a lot of planning ahead. What course will you sail, what enemies will you be primarily shooting at, on which side do you aim the guns? Maneuverability is pretty decent actually. Sure, not destroyer level, but it's good enough to dodge at least destroyer torpedos, if you change course slightly every now and then, to ruin the perfect lineup on your ship. Torpedo bombers need evasive maneuvers already prior to drop, where you are either facing them head on or sailing directly away. Best chances to avoid at least most of the spread. 2. 30 seconds is average for all BBs and realistic. Most ships BBs historically had rates of fire of 2 rpm. You are loading projectiles that weigh at least a few hundred kg, to over a tonne at tier X. However, as can be expected, once you fire and hit, it usually wrecks anything non-BB (unless you use the wrong ammunition). To avoid enemies getting too close, maneuver. The sole thing you have to fear from very close range is torpedos. And ramming attempts. But most ships fast enough to pull that off are too light to kill you in one go (battlecruisers being an exception). 3. You can maneuver to avoid being an easy target from 7-10 km away. Otherwise, later BBs will get torpedo protection of the passive kind, a torpedo belt. Doesn't mean you can't get hit (and sunk if it adds up), but you take less damage and I think floodings are less frequent. Just try to give destroyers a hard time to target you and they'll be just as frustrated as you, especially IJN ones with their miserable guns. But even US destroyers have a hard time killing a BB with their gunfire. 4. 1 out of 3 is good accuracy for a BB. If a Myogi, the ship with notoriously poor gun armament for a BB in terms of quantity hits a third of a salvo, it can deal from 2,000-20,000 damage, depending on where you hit. If you hit and penetrate non-critical prts, it'd be 6,000, which per salvo isn't a reason to be euphoric, but it's solid damage. Unless you hit citadels, fights with battleships might be a bit drawn out affair. But it's workable. 5. Having three heals that can restore a good part of your health isn't useless. BBs that can avoid getting torpedoed and don't present easy citadel hits on their ships (by spending too much time broadside on), are pretty much the most resilient thing there is. Especially as you go up the tiers and get proper armour schemes. Also, if a DDs target cannot see the DD launching torps at it, then range is still sufficient to say it's not perfect and relies on your target making mistakes. Torps have a no-escape zone of maybe 1 km (against destroyers) to 4 km (unmaneuverable BBs). But by the time you get this cumbersome, your battleship has secondaries with at least 5 km range. Got my Kongou last night, so I'm used to fast battleships, but US BBs are still maneuverable and I saw enough teammates (and enemies) dodge torpedo spreads. Once you get used to it, it's not hard to avoid getting torpedoed to death. Just pay attention and anticipate potential threats (sailing close to islands while knowing there are DDs around is not really the smartest thing to do).

Ersatz Yorck is a battlecruiser and would thus be found in the German BB line, if it was implemented, similar to Myogi, Kongou and amagi, which are also all battlecruiser designs (noticeable ingame by high speed, but underwhelming armour). If a BC line ever came into being, it'd most likely be a second BB line, as WG stated that sub-classes may be introduced, but they always will be of one of the overall four classes of ships.

It's actually pretty hard, even with perfect accuracy to hit citadel penetrations on a battleship that is steaming straight towards you. You can hit the bow, which isn't critical, or you hit the sides, where it happens at an angle that it just ricochets off.

I don't think it's really the smartest idea anyway to hug land masses with a BB. The sole thing it can provide is some brief pause, if line of fire is seriously interrupted, but you don't need to be within 3 km of those mountain islands for that to happen. and smaller islands are neither providing cover from being seen, nor from being shot at, as plunging fire will just rain down and worst case you can't fire back, because of the island blocking the guns. The issue is mostly, even the worst battleships have a decent defense mechanism that usually dissuades enemies from coming within 3 km, which are the secondary guns, that progressively get better. And unless I have nothing else to shoot at, I'd let those handle a destroyer within 3 km, because main battery guns are slow-firing and it's more useful to pick off cruisers or battleships that might give you additional trouble and let the rapid-firing casemate guns rip apart whatever destroyer got into 3 km range, while maneuvering to avoid getting torpedoed. Playing destroyers at times myself, I'd torpedo a battleship from 3-4 km away at closest, which is where the chances of hitting the battleship are reasonably high, yet it is not entirely suicidal. The sole time I ever pointed my main battery at a destroyer within 3 km in a battleship was with a Kawachi, because if I already have an otherwise useless gun in that direction, may as well use it, but otherwise, the sole ships where I had firefights with at 3 km and less were other battleships, given that BBs are kind of the least afraid of secondaries, it seems. And one Langley where I wanted to maximise firepower in my Myogi, so sailed close. I don't want to call the buff bad before it even happened, but from what I heard and from my personal experience, that will not change the way BBs play currently.

It wasn't much of a serious comment. The Langley is in its speed most likely as representative for US CVs as the Kawachi is for the IJN BB line.

I once read the idea of Austro-Hungarian vessels getting a tree. And I laughed. You can't fill it up past tier V, the successor states were all land-locked (and if you count Yugoslavia, which shouldn't count as it originated from Serbia + war spoils, then there still is nothing) and that's pretty much it. The USSR and Germany are next, then RN (overdue), France and Italy are deserving of a tech tree too. But I can't recall any other major naval player that would make sense to be given their own tree. Just that most sailors were not Polish, but from Italian parts, Croatian parts and the Austrian littoral/Slovenia. I think Polish ships at best might be put into the RN line, as premiums for enthusiasts, similarly to the WoT Rudy.

Well, a Hosho at least can try run away. A Langley can't and its citadels are kinda obvious. Other than that, I loathe all carriers equally.

I'm already happy if I get into a game within two minutes of the start of the match. Had games where it took long enough for me to get torpedo bombed to death before joining. Not going to complain though, rather getting a new PC, so I can also have a nice graphics setting and only need to silently rage about the team, not about my lack of PC performance. Though, after almost a decade with this PC, I have learned to be patient and forgiving. Sadly that doesn't help my team much...

A question, because I don't play carriers and usually ignore fighters and aerial engagements in my battleships, given they aren't of importance to me, so I wouldn't know: Would Japanese fighters have a decent chance to win a 2 vs 1 engagement, when it's 8 Japanese fighters vs 6 US ones? Or is the amount of aircraft lost not worth it?

Almost at Kongou and my best result in Myogi were 70k damage. I cannot say that I had great games, because damage at the end is limited and I'm hardly that good a player, but 68k should be a solid 1,000-1,500 exp, depending on target. And if everything else fails, Myogi can still go 29 knots for ramming speed. Just aim at a decent health enemy BB.

Some pretty neat changes. New maps and stuff is always nice, and I can't yet comment on how well they play, but yay. CV gameplay changes sound good too, though I don't play CVs, so I wouldn't know. The CV matchmaking though is awesome. No longer will there be tier IV matches where noone has decent AA, but the enemy got one Hosho and we got nothing but our dodging skills. And I guess it'll give those carriers some happy times who invest in fighters and won't get into matches without enemy CVs. The changes to various ships sound interesting, though I do wonder how Japanese destroyers will play now after this. I do hope Minekaze won't suddenly be worse off for her tier to Isokaze, which is a fine ship. The short-range accuracy though... 3km? In a cruiser short range accuracy wasn't much of an issue, given cruisers fire fast and not too much spread, but for a battleship, 3 km is the range where even a tier IV Myogi has secondaries to rip destroyers apart. Honestly, if a ship comes within 3 km and is not dying fast already from secondaries, then something went wrong and most likely torpedos are about to be launched. The issue seemed more to be ships just outside secondary gun range, where accuracy was still meh, and your 152 mm guns don't barrage the area with HE to make up for it. It's definitely nice to see this, but I'm not sure whether it is going to solve much, at only 3 km.

Well, P-class would have enough speed (not outstanding, but sufficient), its protection is cruiser level, the main battery actually is pretty harsh, with less guns, but they are 28 cm guns. They'd pack quite a punch. It also has torpedos though, and AA is underwhelming. For tier 7 though, P-class would be a bit too much with 28 cm guns. It's not a HE-spammer, but pretty much an unarmoured minibattleship, with a 17-20 seconds reload and maximum damage in the range from 5,000 to 7,000.

My personal guess is that the names of the "stranger" ships are just WGs pick for CA projects started by Germany that IRL have names like "D-class cruiser" or "P-class cruiser". Just as we see in the Japanese line, where I doubt anyone ever heard of a Myogi, or of a Zao prior to WoWS. These projects also had some more cryptic designation and would have gotten whatever name, so they are now named after Japanese mountains, as one is a battlecruiser, the other a large cruiser (and mountains were used for battlecruisers and heavy cruisers in the IJN, then also for carriers). And the names of Yorck, Roon and Hindenburg were names vacant at the time and potentially eligible for German cruisers. I wouldn't waste my time trying to find any design for any ship that goes by those names and would be a fitting ship in the German cruiser line. My question is more, if the ships are based on later German designs, will they fit 20.3 cm guns on them, or would the Germans get 28 cm guns.

64k damage for 38 hits isn't exactly terrible. Just means you most likely didn't get more than at most one citadel penetration, but 64k damage is what I consider an ok result for a Myogi. It's not great, but also not useless. Battleships have huge potential damage on AP (and also HE), but never count on that, unless you actually hit a citadel for maximum damage. From personal experience, if you compare the maximum damage of a Kuma with the potential damage of a Kuma, one 140 mm shell has not even 3k maximum damage, you'd need to land over 20 citadel penetrations to get the 64k damage you got with Myogi, or about 120 or so hits for non-citadel hits with an average 500 damage per hit (fire included).And sure, 120 hits forv Kuma is possible, but it's also not a bad result now, is it?

BB guns always outrange torpedos, are faster on target and apart from tier 3, battleships reload faster (Umikaze being exceptional with ~20 seconds reload). Getting early warning of incoming torpedos is there for every ship, incoming shell fire is an early warning skill. And if a cruiser sails at the 7-10 km range that IJN torpedos usually have and does not change course, it's not too hard to sink them in a salvo or two.

It can perform surprisingly well against same-tier battleships and unsurprisingly so against lower tiered ones. Don't present an easy citadel shot and try to find a good spot to shoot the enemy. 356 mm guns of Myogi are good enough to go through Kawachi (seems to have not a very great armour scheme), other Myogis (side armour is meh), but also South Carolina and Wyoming.