VC381

I definitely feel the Ise argument but my hope is they're planning her in hybrid form in the future. The IJN ships that had strength and stability problems were those newly built deliberately with light construction and over-armed to squeeze the most out of treaty limits. None of the rebuilt BBs had issues. On another note, now Fuso is the only IJN BB with a 1920s look A-hull and that's weird because she's arguably the one that suffered most from it (at least the others have decent range). I think it's safe to assume that will also get removed in future, but is a premium realistic? 12x 14" guns at T5 balanced by bad shells and short range? Could be interesting...

Yup, my bad, I saw the turrets looked similar and didn't read the stats. They do look good though.

Aren't the main guns on that new T10 the 100mm secondaries on the Kutuzov? Seems Akizuki was an experiment for this.

I wanted to play Emerald because she's a beautiful cruiser. I knew going in it wasn't a strong ship but that never put me off before and in some cases I've adored ships that are widely hated by the community. Do you know what killed Emerald for me? The rudder shift and turning circle. I was willing to forgive all her faults if she gave me a fast and furious playstyle. What I got was the handling response of a pregnant whale, on a ship that LOOKS so small and agile just makes it all the more jarring an experience. She SHOULD be like an overgrown DD, if she was agile she would be hilarious fun (even if not actually strong, don't care about that). But it was not to be.

I don't know if they dug up an actual project number for it but the profile and construction are similar to Leningrad, looks to be a preliminary of some sort, weaker to fit the lower tier.

Well, the Gnevny always looked and felt a little too modern for T5, plus with possible soft stat or other buffs she could turn out more enjoyable a tier higher. I'm moderately hyped for the split, I enjoy the playstyle and the ships look nice, Kiev being at T9 makes more chronological sense and we get a non-premium Leningrad class to boot!

We can agree to disagree on whether it looks nice but I find the changes very plausible. The bridge, tower and turrets of Nagato as built and Amagi as designed are so similar that doing anything other than a copy paste for the upgrades would have been much less convincing, for me at least. The funnel needs to be big because the ship has vast installed power (just look at Akagi's funnel). In any case funnels themselves aren't very heavy and the hull got Nagato style bulges so I see no stability concerns (unless your top heavy comment referred only to appearance). Also I want to point out that the refitted Amagi is based almost entirely on a sketch that has been around the internet for a at least a decade before WoWs. Earliest reference I can find is this forum thread from 2005, and that isn't the original so it's even older. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=998695 So while it is fiction, its origin has nothing to do with WG or vodka. It's not soulless in my opinion because it makes sense. There are other drawings, arts and models, unrelated to each-other and to WG, that all assume a rebuilt Amagi class BC would have shared most of the features of the reconstructed Nagato class. All this of course doesn't mean I'm not excited for potential as-built hulls as premiums.

And all the cruisers, but damn it looks good! Shame they didn't do that for the Amagi A-hull, that trunked funnel looks pretty awful compared to the two she was designed with.

The differences are small between '30s Hood and '41 Hood, but quite large compared to a 1942 refit that everyone is quite rightly assuming will be the top hull of a tech tree version (if that's how we get the class). As build, the armor schemes of Hood and Nagato are surprisingly similar, as is their secondary armament (down to the above water torpedo tubes). Given how this game distorts the relative value of different kind of armour schemes, and how "brawling" range in game would essentially be suicide range IRL (way closer than the lower end of ANY immunity zone), the angling would matter more than the bulk of the armour scheme anyway. Plus Hood would have the speed to get in, the accuracy to obliterate something quickly, and the speed to get back out before too much focus fell on her. As a side note, Hood had a strange "weak spot" due to the exposed armored slope but even accounting for this, actual ranges at which she is vulnerable to plunging fire are something like >20km against 15" guns. This is pretty terrible as an upper bound of an immunity zone IRL but is extreme range in game. As I said the whole thing is distorted.

See, that's one of the perceptions I want to change. "Only HE works at long range" is only true for the 6" gun ships, and even then depends a little on target. BB camping has nothing to do with ammo choice, you can find a closer target, use islands or concealment to get as close as you need, or fire AP anyway if he's broadside, you'll be surprised at the results especially on ships with thin deck armor.

There's a big skill rearrangement with the next patch, but I think typical cruiser builds should be similar. What do you want from your ship? High tier German cruisers are great AA escorts with AFT+Manual AA. Other than that, standard cruiser stuff I guess.

It was some time ago but I didn't like Wyoming even in T4 games. South Carolina was a complete seal clubber for me but Wyoming was a pain, can't hit a barn door at point blank range and the turret angles mean half the time I was only firing 8 guns anyway.

Eh, seeing how they handled Mutsu might hint at a 1930s version as a premium if the 1941 is stock hull and other hulls are 1942 refit. Also means the premium can get a catapult plane and very strong secondaries, both of which are lacking in the 1941 version.

This is a ship I greatly enjoy but I understand I'm in a minority there so I'll try to explain why I like her without gushing all over. Firstly, what is your upgrade and commander setup? The ship needs Concealment Expert to really shine. This gives you the freedom to pick the Steering mod instead of the concealment mod in the last slot, propulsion in the other, for the so-called "dodge build". This complements her excellent turning circle and good speed retention in turns. Playstyle is seat of your pants WASD-hax, opportunistic hunting with a heavy focus on using AP. Not sure where you're getting your perception from, upgraded reload is 14 seconds which is second best at tier for 8" guns. Only Hipper/Prinz Eugen are faster at 13s, Mogami has 15s and Atago 16s. The 6" gun cruisers are obviously faster firing but also have smaller guns so less penetration, less alpha etc. So apples and oranges comparison. Range is better than IJN and RN. AP is excellent and reliable against angled targets when others would already be bouncing. She's not a fire spammer, she's a broadside punisher that works better than most because of that unique US AP. So yeah, nothing wrong with her guns, my experience with her firepower is very positive. That, in a nutshell, is why I like her. She's a combination of firepower and agility in a small package that other cruisers just can't match even if they have other strengths. She's hard work because she doesn't have a single reliable "safe" playstyle. As I said, always hunting, always dodging, always switcing targets to maximize your firepower.

Because they were scared Scharnhorst original setup would be too weird to work as a normal BB, so they sell it separately so they can claim them premium is unique, also knowing everyone will want to buy it for the historical armament, The armament in game is based on the planned reconstruction and is not far fetched, it's just less weird that suddenly having quite small guns on a BB.

I remember I enjoyed New York's firepower although was a bit frustrated with the position and angles of No.3 turret. I liked Kongo more but I'm a speed freak. I would say the bigger problem for New York is map design, ends up on quite a few maps where her speed either prevent her getting to the action or mean she has to charge somewhere she can't escape from and hope for the best. It's not even the SIZE of the maps that's a problem, it's the island layout that makes it frustrating. She does well on more open maps. Overall though firing 10 guns looks and feels quite satisfying, she's a huge upgrade over the Wyoming IMO (I hated that thing).

Not really, Tuccy just said FdG with the 42cm option is basically already H41. To be honest, it would have made more sense to not give FdG the gun option, have GK with 8x 42cm and buff RoF to make up the DPS instead of giving it triple turrets.

The problem with the skill us it scales badly and is therefore only useful on DDs, and even then the point cost makes it compete with AFT and DE. It might work better as a % HP boost where the % is different for each class (like CE has % detection range decrease for different classes).

Isn't GK essentially a scaled down, not too silly H-44. Although as far as I know none of the H series designs actually used triple turrets, anything past H-39 is already fiction anyway.

I do fear that this hype train is going to crash very hard. The reason is that, boiled down to basic stats, RN battleships are somewhat lackluster. Their trump cards IRL were being revolutionary, being many and/or being very well sailed. Once you balance them against ships of equivalent power level they lose strengths like being the first ship with X size gun. They are by no means bad ships, but they've got no particular strength or flavour rooted in the designs themselves. All that's left is to prop them up with soft stats that try to emulate very competent crews.

You are partly right, I should check wiki before posting. Zuiho fighters are individually slightly better than Bogue fighters in every way. But in that match up you're often 4 vs 12 fighters in the air so it makes little difference. Tiers 6 to 8 though it's either on par or IJN have less HP per fighter but slightly more firepower. Since chance of losing a plane is calculated using total squadron firepower vs individual plane HP, this works out very badly for IJN. Also don't forget US planes have more ammo, which makes them more likely to come out on top in long fights or fights after a strafe or two.

Indeed but the poor guy is only at T5 and I'm only T8 myself in both CV lines so wasn't going to go into detailed T9/10 comparison.

I would be more hyped for either Renown class member in any fit, even more than for Hood, because I consider them gorgeous ships and the real last thoroughbred battlecruiser (Hood herself crossing over heavily to fast BB). If they go with normal BBs, I guess they can keep the zombie healing flavor they started with Warspite. Also slow turrets but very accurate guns. Low tiers would have the "trait" of getting bigger guns sooner compared to US and KM. High tiers might end up a bit generic with the exception of individual history. I think their overall feel will be close to IJN without the crazy range.

So, Des Moines, Midway, Gearing etc. fought in WWII? Hmm. All real cold war ships there actually. To be honest, the time the ship was built is actually a bit irrelevant because some nations were really behind on technology or building ability. All the Russian "cold war" ships were designed to WWII principles (some even before the war) just Russia didn't have resources to actually build them until the 1950s. Functionally they are equivalent to same tier ships in other nations, there is nothing magically "modern" about them.

The US planes are not lower tier, they are individually stronger than yours and they have 6 per squadron instead of your 4. It's normal for your fighters to get destroyed in a straight up fight and this stays the same at all tiers. BUT, IJN CVs are more flexible and have more torpedo bombers to do damage with. At T5 you only have one fighter squadron but later you have two or three. Strafing head to head doesn't kill too many fighters, but the trick is to bait with one squad and strafe with the other. Yes you lose all your fighters but so does the enemy, and he loses 6 while you lose 4. For T5 you have a choice. If the enemy has only one fighter squadron, you engage it at the right time to get your bombers past, basically sacrifice it so you can still do damage. If you are against fighter deck Bogue, no way yo say it, your life will be painful. But, he only has one bomber squadron while you have two TB squads. Your damage potential is huge compared to him. Again, bait his fighters and sacrifice yours, your TBs even if you only strike a couple of times successfully will do way more damage than his DB and you have more game impact. In a way you are askung the wrong question. Killing enemy fighters might he fun but actually isn't the point of CV play. The point is you can do tons of damage to anyone you like. As IJN CV, your fighters are expendable to protect your bombers.