dubsy1021

So I have been thinking recently about how to do a Royal Navy battlecruiser tree, and how their performance would be, and I've come to some ideas. So firstly, general performance. I think the main 'gimmick' would be basing their hull performance closer to a cruiser than a battleship. This would reflect their origin as a cruiser killer based off of an armoured cruiser type hull. So what do I mean by this? Firstly, better rudder shift. This allows them to stay closer to the battle, in tune with their speed, and dodge torpedoes, staying alive. Secondly, better concealment, again allowing a closer presence. This would allow them to become more orientated around cruiser support, as opposed to a more long range traditional BB role. The trade off is of course weakness to battleship fire and probably lower HP So how would I do the tiers? Well, start at tier 3. HMS Invincible is a fairly obvious pick. The first battlecruiser. Compared to the Bellerophon, you sacrifice armour and a turret for speed, along with the previous features I mentioned. Interestingly, despite 1 fewer turrets, the ship allows LIMITED cross deck firing, so it is possible to get an 8 gun broadside (similar to the Kaiser, if any of you are familiar with that ship). Another possibility is the Indefatigable class, which was very similar. Basically it allowed better cross deck firing angles, and had other slight improvements. HMS Inflexible, an Invincible class Tier 4 is where things get a little interesting with my choices. Some people seem to be of the opinion that there should only be 1 13.5 inch BC, with the rather weak 6 gun 15 inch Renown at T5 then a merger, or something similar. However, I suggest sticking with 13.5 inchers from 4 to 5. This follows the battleship precendant, and stays with the theme of a smaller main armament and less armour for more speed compared to the same tier British battleship. So the lower pick would be Lion. This class were the first 13.5 inch battlecruisers, with an improved speed and thicker armour. HMS Lion Then at tier 5, HMS Tiger. This ship is very comparable to the Kongos, both being improved Lions (fun fact the first Kongo was built in Britain). It has far better rear firing angles for the mid turret (on Lion there's a second superstructure obstructing firing, Tiger was refitted to have full rear firing - this presents an interesting hull upgrade option). It also had 6 inch secondaries rather than 4 inch, and is slightly faster. Basically, it is to the Lions as the Iron Dukes are to the Orions. Comparing it to the Kongo, I am aware this is a potential issue for some people. Smaller guns and slower speed. However, I disagree. Firstly, the speed is only 2kn slower. Secondly, the armour is thicker on Tiger. Finally, the 13.5 inch is very comparable to the Vickers 14 incher. The 13.5 is certainly a little worse, however not significantly, and its higher trajectory makes it more effective against deck armour, a considerable advantage at this tier when ships do not have very thick decks. Also, I think it would be reasonable to give the ship a WWII refit. This could vary in significance a lot. The minimum would be better AA, like the German BBs of this tier. It could extend further though. The Kongos were refitted with better armour and better boilers giving a higher top speed. Why not give the Tiger a speed boost? It's a reasonable upgrade. The most outlandish possibility is replacing the 13.5 inch guns with 14 inch guns as fitted to the KGVs. The 14 inch gun was actually designed to fit in the 13.5 inch mounts, interestingly, so it does have some basis in reality and could quite possibly have happened if the ship had stuck around. HMS Tiger, showing the better firing angles on the rear turret Moving on, Renown at tier 6. A faster Revenge class with 6 15 inch guns, and hideously thin armour. A 6 inch thick belt. This thing is a real glass cannon. But at 32 knots, with decent firing angles and less of a reliance on broadsiding (2/3 of main guns are forward firing), it should be OK. No trouble on AA, the Renown got right through WWII so a decent armament got on, along with some neat secondary 4.5 inchers and the octopoidal superstructure. HMS Renown in refitted condition Tier 7 is where I think the line should merge back in with the BBs. This tier would have the final battlecruiser. Hood as a premium creates an issue, but I have a solution. The original Admiral class design. This would mean a very fast ship with 32kn +. The Admiral had a much better belt than Renown, with 12 inches at 12 degrees. This is actually comparable to the Iowa at close ranges (lesser angle, but this has little effect at close range), so perfectly well protected. The deck armour is really not anything to write home about, but the ship is intended to fight at closer ranges, so this shouldn't be a giant issue. The AA could be modelled off of Hood, or given a more generous WWII refit. The ship would look very similar to Hood, though probably sitting a little higher in the water. HMS Hood. The Admiral would look very similar. The reason for a Tier 7 merge is twofold. Firstly, I cannot think of a T8. Secondly, from the KGV and beyond, the battleships get faster and make the idea of a battlecruiser a bit obsolete. However, if a candidate for T8 can be found, and is used (likely one of the worse designs from the studies that led to the G3s and N3s), the T9 would probably be a G3, with a modernised AA set up. This is a fast, well armoured and fairly well armed ship, a true fast battleship, so I personally would not really recommend it, it would not fit with the line well and be too similar to the Lion. So what are people's thoughts on my suggestions?

I do think the main issue with the G3 is that in some ways it is actually armoured better than Lion, at tier 9. The Lion has 5" deck armour, but for much of the ship the G3 has 8". Of course it does have the section that is worse protected, but that is only in comparison, that section is still comparable to Bismarck in thickness. The G3 is a true fast battleship. So making it squishy from hull plating ignores the point. I realise ending it at 7 would annoy some players, but I envision the line as somewhat of an experienced player's pursuit anyway. Another ship to research sideways at tier 3, which will probably appeal less to new players than the Bellerophon due to being less up front powerful. I don't imagine a lot of people will go through the battlecruiser route, then rejoin to get to tier 10 first time, and a veteran would not be irritated to see it come back together at Monarch. But if you still think it is an issue, an opportunity to help to solve the rather bumpy join could be making the Admiral class more of a halfway house, which would make a lot of sense, since the modified Hood ended up as a fast battleship.

Well firstly, I don't really see the sense in doing 14" standard BBs from T5 to T7. The entire point was that they performed similarly. So at T5 the Nevada is just objectively better, mostly in armour, than the New York. Too good. At T6 the Pennsylvania would be fine, because that is the tier the standards actually slot into. Then at 7 you hit a major problem. The Tennessee is not significantly superior to the New Mexico. It is basically the same, with better torpedo protection and higher gun elevation. The elevation seems to be basically irrelevant to range in game, so it won't affect that is WG is consistent. And compared to the KGV, the WWI era US 14inchers were significantly inferior. And the KGV shoots great HE in game. Are you suggesting implementing that into a single ship in game, but not the other standards (would make them OP), or the South Dakota (also would be OP, see why later). The standards only make sense at 6, all of them. The South Dakota is less of an issue at 8, though it was objectively better than the NC, it could be bent a little by WG to fit. But if HE was made a line feature, which is the only way WG would do it, it would just become OP. And to look at the issue of line features, more ships is not a line feature. They would essentially be an identical progression, assuming you solve the balance issues. So you need to work out some flavour you can give them to make them interesting and unique. Which wouldn't make much sense, given you would be saying that 3 standard classes have ..., but for some reason the other 2 did not. I think it is an inherently bad idea.

Well I don't think the Lion name is much of an issue, it's not like the ships have overlapping matchmaking brackets, so you couldn't really get confused. A T6 would be the highest to face Lion (BC), but too low to face Lion (BB). Still, Queen Mary would work fine at 4, so there's no reason why not to go with that. Repulse at 5 makes sense. At least worse AA, and worse fire control, and possibly in her original configuration, worse armour as well.