VC381

The Essex class had a "long-hull" variant (CV-14 onwards) that extended the bow to a long "clipper" shape while shortening the flight deck forward to give that bofors a better arc (and actually those ships had two instead of one in that position). The flight deck was re-lengthened on most of them since it was realised the arc wasn't worth it compared to storing more planes, launching with heavier loads etc. All the bofors 40mm mounts on US ships had their own fire control separate from their mount, but not always directly adjacent. But yes, refitted ships had AA in weird places, every little helps! That bridge on the Lex should lead to a catwalk that goes around the top of the funnel. The in-game Lexington is actually modelled on Saratoga because Lex herself was sunk before getting all the fancy later war AA. Not sure if Sara should still have that bridge to the funnel.

Yeah, I know the game isn't huge on realism but AP is a bit too situational. Really AP should be the normal ammo type against similar sized targets and HE should be situational.

I like it. I would also like a bombardment objective where each team has to destroy a target on an island (e.g. a port or factory with lots of HP) while the other team has to defend it.

I was surprised when I got a citadel with HE on a Bogue I snuck up on in my Gnevny. I switched to AP and had a field day, he went down before I even got into torpedo range. I am mainly an IJN player and my experience there is that AP is so unreliable it's not worth the risk using it, but based on what you say I need to experiment more with other ships.

Fine this is an old topic but I think still relevant. I don't know why people are focusing on the cruiser vs. BB part. The fact is, unless you are a BB or German AP is so situational it isn't worth the risk. In cruiser vs. cruiser engagements, where the enemy can angle quickly and you usually have decent RoF, HE is far more reliable. The problem isn't that HE burns BBs down so fast, the problem is that cruiser AP is so weak against cruiser armor that it makes it not worth using. In reality it should be a case of "use AP against same size ship, HE on anything bigger or smaller" but for cruisers it's "use HE on everything".

DE all the way, 20% fire chance on 10 shells per salvo, laugh and watch the world burn.

It also depends on when you do your damage and how your team is doing. Taking out priority targets early can lead to a snowball win if your team takes advantage, but less damage for you because more people are sharing the kills on the remaining enemies. On the flip side, a moderately good player that fails to impact early or is just left outnumbered by a bad team can still stay alive longer and make massive damage in a hopeless losing game.

What it says in the title. The obvious problem is that smoke appears behind you so if you are moving towards the enemy you don't get hidden. So, tips and tricks?

Well, I actually decided to try it in the Kutuzov and that was fun, although I did feel a bit dirty about doing it. Closed aggressively on a Hindenburg and Yamato until they decided I can't be ignored any longer, stopped in smoke and just had a field day. After my smoke ran out I used a friendly Atago as a shield, repositioned and did it again with the second smoke. I got 250 hits, about 100k damage including fires. I also tried it in a Gnevny. The first time I ninja-torped a Kamikaze (that felt good) and made some cruisers run away but got cocky when my smoke ran out and got blasted by a New York. Second time I set up perfectly but an enemy Hatsuharu came around the corner and decided to share my smoke! We both missed torpedos but were within guaranteed detection range so got shredded by the cruisers on both sides. Whoops! So mixed success but definitely promising and fun, will keep it up with the Russian DDs and Kutuzov. I do want a Benson but I am grinding so many other lines and all the US destroyers before it are kind of ugly, so not sure I'll bother.

OK thanks, that video is awesome! Off to practice

I'm in a similar position to you OP (just unlocked Aoba yesterday, probably will get Nurn today as I'm not far off) but I do have the Atago so I'm not in a rush to grind the IJN ships, I just want to play up that line eventually because I love IJN cruisers. Having said that, I have faced the Myoko and York in my Atago and also in my Cleveland and Fuso. My conclusion is that I need to respect the Myoko no matter what ship I'm in while York doesn't really scare me. I wouldn't say it's weak, but I don't worry about facing it while I know I will take a lot of return damage or outright lose if I approach a Myoko carelessly. I expect the Myoko plays like a slightly weaker Atago in which case it should be the better ship hands down. Also I would not base your conclusions on liking Nurn more because the change in gun caliber is a playstyle shift so you can't expect the York to play the same just by being same nation. The IJN like from Furutaka onwards is a smooth logical progression with no playstyle zig-zag so once you grow into it there are no surprises.

And actually, that game was only won by 10 seconds. That Pensacola on the enemy team was on our cap and nobody was near him except one guy who died... but hit back just enough to delay the cap until the game timer ran out. It was nail biting, I probably would have posted a furious rant if I lost that game. Illustrates my earlier point though, all that damage, all those kills and awards, and ultimately could have made no difference as to whether that game was won or lost. Essentially won by chance.

I would agree with this. You have a lot of alpha damage and a low shell arc so you can cripple or finish off a DD quite easily, but really killing DDs should be a means to an end not an end in itself. The end is to have an area you can operate without being spotted, using your excellent concealment to be aggressive but with a safety net. As I said, I like to hunt cruisers and get quite close in doing so, you just need to be very aware of whether you are presenting broadside to enemy BBs.

Imperator was never completed but the classes from around that time were similar and in their WWII refits could be justified at Tier V. Borodino class battlecruiser has the armament to justify her at Tier 6. After that it gets iffy. Sovietsky Soyuz would need to be Tier 9 or 10, the gap would be filled with projects, the most famous of which I guess would be the Krnoshtadt and Stalingrad class battlecruisers but I'm sure WG can dig up more sketches same as they did with the cruisers. Those last two battlecruiser classes I mentioned are beautiful and interesting ships, which would be fun to include as a "test" of how a very modern battlecruiser but with small guns (11" and 12" respectively) compared to contemporary BBs can be balanced.

Firstly, are carriers capped at max. 2 per team? I was wondering if there's a cap or if I don't see more because they aren't popular. Secondly, why are they so unpopular (especially at high tier)? I mean, they have a very specific playstyle personally I don't care for them but I would imagine others have different opinions. Are they really that weak at the moment and if so why?

I think I learned how to Fuso, thanks for all the help guys 169k, new overall damage record for me.

I don't understand the logic that only captains that sail in a straight line or are tunnel visioned need high alert. You could make the same simplistic argument about Vigilance on a cruiser, that if you are changing course regularly the normal torpedo spotting distance is more than enough. Personally I don't feel I get hit by stray torpedoes often enough to make me want to take vigilance (I do get torped, but I know why that happens that it's not situations where vigilance would have saved me). On the other hand, every second counts for not taking that extra fire/flooding damage, or getting your steering back etc. Also the premium consumable argument isn't a great one either. If you want to improve something it's worth going all out to improve it rather than using one method of improvement to justify not using the other. Ultimately it comes down to personal choice. To be honest I find all the other tier 3 skills a bit underwhelming so for me it's a binary choice. Superintendent on all ships that strongly benefit from it (anything with a heal or smoke, so all BBs/DDs and high tier cruisers) and high alert on everything else (erm... low and mid tier cruisers).

Well, CVs did become THE capital ship in WWII and while I understand that the game needs to be balanced for each ship type I wouldn't mind seeing more of them. I like naval aviation and CVs as ships but like I said the gameplay isn't really my thing, guess others share that opinion. I guess this has been discussed before but what do the CV players think would make the gameplay more interesting?

I wouldn't say CV play is boring, quite the opposite. I don't like it because I can't handle the amount of multi-tasking, micro-managing and map awareness you need! Also I don't like it because the ships in this game look so good it's a shame to not be able to see them up close. But I'm surprised you say most people find it "boring". I wonder, if there was no cap would it be better? Then the responsibility of being a good CV doesn't fall on 1 or 2 people and CV players can learn easier?

Yeah, it's been covered already but the Atago isn't a "sit back and support" ship, or at least that's not how I play mine. My captain is only level 11, currently 1 point spare as I have: 1 - SA 2 - EM 3 - High Alert (ideally I would have Super here for the extra heal and AA barrage but this isn't an Atago exclusive captain and Super doesn't do anything useful on the Furutaka that I'm grinding with the same captain) 4 - DE Also camo module is an absolute must. Even without the tier 5 captain skill I have 10.3km detection range. With the speed and forward facing torpedo arcs you can close to torpedo range and launch within seconds of being spotted (with the captain skill you're invisi-torping, 16 torps total if you do a 180 and sequence launch). Also at <12km your AP obliterates any cruiser not tier 10, they can't angle against your first salvo if they can't see you coming! I don't claim I'm an expert player but I play mine as a cross between a battlecruiser and a giant destroyer and I love it. I'm always rushing (sometimes I die horribly) but I have it set up to work like that and when it does work things just die, or they run screaming from you and then die anyway.

Could be bad luck, as has been said you have 5 turrets with thin armor there is a high chance that one will get hit. I've not usually had a problem with mine but I do find in general that you are much more likely to lose a turret if you are bow on to someone.

Does this work? The reason I ask is because I am planning to always keep my Kongo with a dedicated captain, but now I also have the ARP Haruna and soon Hiei as well. I'm very happy to collect all these ships but I kind of want to do something different with each one. I feel for the typical playstyle you don't need higher level captains but my "normal" Kongo captain is level 10, almost level 11. He already has AFT, I was thinking of either resetting him or using that 11th skill point on BFT (current tier 1 is the survivability thing). I don't think the tier 5 secondary skill is worth it because the bonus is small on lower tier ships, but how good is BFT+AFT stacked with the secondary modification for range? By my calculation I should have 5.6km secondary firing range. I do play my Kongos very aggressive (not sure if I would notice the difference without the accuracy model at the ranges I usually shoot at). I can't say I'm always in secondary range to people but it does happen often, especially against US BBs where my tactic is to head-rush them and handbrake-turn-broadside them while they're reloading. I'm not really asking if it's super amazing optimal, more if it's just workable/fun.

Well, I got the close quarters achievement with the Fuso a few days ago despite not having AFT on that captain or any mods to do with secondaries XD To me the most important part of your post is the fact you don't notice accuracy change without GFCS. I think everyone gets it, which I understand because statistically every little helps and the other upgrades in that slot range from "situational at best" to "utterly useless", but if it's not that good then that opens up some flexibility.

Nah, they don't have too much HP and neither are they that good at dodging unless the captain is REALLY good. If you can see him and he's in range to shoot you, you can two-hit him. Now spot the problem with that statement: IF! The biggest problem with DDs is the ability to invisifire for extended periods of time with the smoke (especially the high tier USN ones). IMO it's the smoke that needs nerfing, not the HP or the torps or anything else. It's simply stupid that a US or Russian DD above tier 5 can take 50% to 75% of a cruiser's HP off in the time it takes their smoke to run out, while the cruiser can do literally nothing to retaliate. That and the "you are permanently spotted but can't do anything about it" BS, which also boils down to excessive stealth ability. Basically, in any game ever that involves PvP, stealth is a toxic one-sided mechanic and is one of the hardest things to balance. I get vision ranges and all that, fog of war is fine, but the DDs are just too good at not being seen, and it distorts the game.

What it says on the tin. Maybe I just haven't noticed but I feel typical RL things like amount of smoke or size of bow wave don't work in game because they don't seem to change much with ship speed. What do you guys use to tell if the target isn't going full speed for example? Or do you just fire and correct?