Asashio and Teamplay

[VC381]

1 hour ago, ShinGetsu said:

Well, you basically said : "I'd rather have a braindead in a camping Asashio than having a braindead wasting his Benson"

 

How about having no braindead playing DD in the first place ? :x

 

Sure, Asashio will sometimes perform for a moronic player, but that's still a ship with so little potential... Low skill floor but low skill ceiling isn't exactly a stellar idea for a premium ship.

 

I disagree for the "IJN design philosophy". IJN design philosophy was to basically win the war by exclusively using torpedoes. Having torpedoes only working against capital ship is the antithesis of that.

 

Well, I was only countering the argument that bad players will play the ship by saying if there has to be a bad player, I would rather he was in a low skill floor ship. I also said I think all things being equal your average random will do about as well in Asashio as any other DD.

 

I disagree about the skill ceiling. Surely the fact it can't do some of the things people expect of a DD very well makes it a high skill ceiling ship to actually make the most of the things it does do well. Low skill floor, yes, easy to farm safe damage. But actually playing around the other weaknesses to make that anti-BB potential truly impactful, I would say that's high skill ceiling.

 

And sure the IJN ended up torpedoing a lot of ships but very few BBs when it came to it. However the core of the pre-war torpedo doctrine was that light forces were to cripple the enemy capital ships in advance of the main fleet battle, and to be expendable against enemy screening forces if necessary to achieve that aim. That's exactly the role Asashio fits.

[Pikkozoikum]

2 hours ago, ShinGetsu said:

[...]

 

I disagree for the "IJN design philosophy". IJN design philosophy was to basically win the war by exclusively using torpedoes. Having torpedoes only working against capital ship is the antithesis of that.

 

But I thought they also believed in the strength of the battles ships, that's why they built the Yamato-class ships? So would somehow make sense if they think torpedos and bb's have to most impact, so torpedos --> bbs :D

[LOZFFVII]

1 hour ago, VC381 said:

I disagree about the skill ceiling. Surely the fact it can't do some of the things people expect of a DD very well makes it a high skill ceiling ship to actually make the most of the things it does do well. Low skill floor, yes, easy to farm safe damage. But actually playing around the other weaknesses to make that anti-BB potential truly impactful, I would say that's high skill ceiling.

According to this reddit thread (yes, I'm aware it's an Overwatch reddit thread, please bare with me):

Skill floor is how bad you can be.

Skill ceiling is how good you can be.

 

The skill floor for Asashio is low because if you get bad MM (something like 5DD, 5CA/CL, 1BB and 1CV) there is effectively nothing you can ever really hope to achieve in Asashio.

The skill ceiling is low for Asashio because it doesn't matter how good you are at the DD playstyle, you will never be as good as another destroyer that actually fits the playstyle better. Sure, you can torpedo all five of the enemy BBs, but what do you do then? What if all of your BBs die simultaneously to you torping all of the enemy BBs? All that's left is DDs and Cruisers (and CVs) - and you cannot hope to win against any of them.

 

42 minutes ago, Pikkozoikum said:

 

But I thought they also believed in the strength of the battles ships, that's why they built the Yamato-class ships? So would somehow make sense if they think torpedos and bb's have to most impact, so torpedos --> bbs :D

Yamato was a propaganda stunt.

She was basically shouting out to the world "HEY! We've built the biggest battleship ever in only 100years of modernisation! WE! ARE! THE! BEST!"

They even kept Yamato's gun calibre a secret until long after the war - the allies belived she was equipped with 16" guns - because they feared they could be accused of warcrimes for developing a gun so devastatingly powerful.

[ShinGetsu]

15 minutes ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

Skill floor is how bad you can be.

Skill ceiling is how good you can be.

 

The skill floor for Asashio is low because if you get bad MM (something like 5DD, 5CA/CL, 1BB and 1CV) there is effectively nothing you can ever really hope to achieve in Asashio.

The skill ceiling is low for Asashio because it doesn't matter how good you are at the DD playstyle, you will never be as good as another destroyer that actually fits the playstyle better. Sure, you can torpedo all five of the enemy BBs, but what do you do then? What if all of your BBs die simultaneously to you torping all of the enemy BBs? All that's left is DDs and Cruisers (and CVs) - and you cannot hope to win against any of them.

Erm, I'm not using the same definition for Skill Floor and Ceiling.

 

Skill Floor for me means "the minimum skill required to make it somewhat work."

Asashio skill floor is low because even a monkey could hit some torpedoes by spamming those 20 km in the general direction of braindead battleships.

Akizuki skill floor is high because using properly a DD that handles like a battleship is far from easy.

 

Asashio skill ceiling is low too, because it has very low potential in good hands. Like you said : once you killed all BBs with your """""superior"""" torpedo aiming skill, what then ? You're useless for the whole match.

Akizuki skill ceiling is incredibly high. A good player will wipe the floor with every DDs, get the caps, and still manage to get some torpedos hits despites having only 5 or 10 torpedoes every 3 minutes ; and will even spam BBs from smoke for very decent damage in a crossfiring position from the allies. She's a carry machine, able to do devastating damage on the most important targets ingame. And as a bonus, you can feed her with planes.

 

The players in reddit defines the "high skill floor" by "minimum potential". Basically he defines a high skill floor by what I define a low skill floor. It's a difference of perspective I guess.

 

 

So, for me : "high skill floor, high skill ceiling" means "high risks, high rewards." while "low floor, low ceiling" means "easy to handle, but very limited potential".

Also, while I'm at it, I define overpowered by "low floor, high ceiling".

[Quetak]

Asashio is ship whith one of lowest impact on game result in whole game. Had 8 games so far with it and twice I ended alone agains DD and CA, all I could do was go to corner and wait for game end.

I bought it for unique playstyle but didnt realized soon enough that this playstyle is so much unique that its bad.

This ship is faaar from OP since you cannot decide/carry games like with any other nation DD.     

[LOZFFVII]

3 hours ago, ShinGetsu said:

Erm, I'm not using the same definition for Skill Floor and Ceiling.

...

The players in reddit defines the "high skill floor" by "minimum potential". Basically he defines a high skill floor by what I define a low skill floor. It's a difference of perspective I guess.

Firstly, you mean 'MAXimum potential'.

EDIT:

I dun goofed and got confused myself!

 

We're going slightly off topic:

According to more posts under the same subject, the definition you use is NOT the original/correct definition. It is the League of Legends definition.

Because LoL is as popular as it is the LoL definition has become considered the 'normal' definition, when it actually isn't and games that existed long before it still use the Original definition.

 

Low skill floor=Unfavourable circumstances/low player skill means ship has no real use in battle.

High skill floor=Unfavourable circumstances/low player skill means ship still has some utility in battle.

Low skill ceiling=Favourable circumstances/high player skill means ship performs no better than a set maximum.

High skil ceiling=Favourable circumstances/high player skill means ship will never reach its' 'true' maximum utility.

[VC381]

27 minutes ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

The skill ceiling is low for Asashio because it doesn't matter how good you are at the DD playstyle, you will never be as good as another destroyer that actually fits the playstyle better. Sure, you can torpedo all five of the enemy BBs, but what do you do then? What if all of your BBs die simultaneously to you torping all of the enemy BBs? All that's left is DDs and Cruisers (and CVs) - and you cannot hope to win against any of them.

 

Sure extreme situations can happen. But on average, an Asashio can and will ensure enemy BBs sink faster than friendly BBs and/or are effectively deterred from being where they need to be to be useful. It can do this far better than any other current DD. When that job is done, if it was done well, you don't need to do anything else because you've set up your team to win. If they don't take advantage there's nothing you can do, but any ship can be screwed by a bad team. And anyway you don't do nothing, you continue spotting, smoking and doing DD things. Maybe you're sub-optimal at them but that's the price you pay, because your game impact comes in another form. You're still doing things.

 

I have no problem with a lot of people disliking the ship. But your argument revolves around the idea of what DDs "should" be good at, which may be the meta or whatever but is ultimately highly subjective. You are completely closed off to the idea of different playstyle but equivalent impact.

[ShinGetsu]

10 minutes ago, VC381 said:

 

Sure extreme situations can happen. But on average, an Asashio can and will ensure enemy BBs sink faster than friendly BBs and/or are effectively deterred from being where they need to be to be useful. It can do this far better than any other current DD. When that job is done, if it was done well, you don't need to do anything else because you've set up your team to win. If they don't take advantage there's nothing you can do, but any ship can be screwed by a bad team. And anyway you don't do nothing, you continue spotting, smoking and doing DD things. Maybe you're sub-optimal at them but that's the price you pay, because your game impact comes in another form. You're still doing things.

 

I have no problem with a lot of people disliking the ship. But your argument revolves around the idea of what DDs "should" be good at, which may be the meta or whatever but is ultimately highly subjective. You are completely closed off to the idea of different playstyle but equivalent impact.

What I dislike about Asashio is mostly the fact you are powerless against 3 out of 4 classes.

"setting up your team to win", is done much faster with an Akizuki or a Z-52. Finding enemy DD and sinking them is a very quick process (even more if your aim is to secures one or two cap at most), compared to torpedoing BBs at long range, and waiting for them to reach... and you still need to kill, so you need several hits.

 

It's just unreliable and way too dependent on other factors. If you end the game alone against one or more cruiser you can't do anything.

 

It lacks versatility. And it is the only ship ingame with such severe limitation. As such, it's a bad ship.

[Sub_Human]

3 hours ago, BeauNidl3 said:

 

Yup, I've done a lot of mayhem with my Kamikaze, but if I'm caught with nowhere to run or hide it's very dead, very fast, fragile and not particularly quick, but quite nimble. It could use a buff really, another 5 kts speed and increase the torps range to 10km with the current base reload, it wouldn't be OP at all!

Im not sure you are right about it needing a buff. I am however sure that IJN Dds in general could use a buff in torpedo-concealment. Reduce it by 3-500m it would help a lot.

[BeauNidl3]

10 minutes ago, Systergummi said:

Im not sure you are right about it needing a buff. I am however sure that IJN Dds in general could use a buff in torpedo-concealment. Reduce it by 3-500m it would help a lot.

 

I may have been slightly sarcastic, played right Kamikaze is downright evil the way it is now.

[LOZFFVII]

14 minutes ago, VC381 said:

When that job is done, if it was done well, you don't need to do anything else because you've set up your team to win. If they don't take advantage there's nothing you can do, but any ship can be screwed by a bad team.

...Except that if an Asashio is screwed by a bad team after she has already sunk all the enemy BBs she basically can't do anything other than spot or smoke. Harekaze? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Kagerou? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Benson? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Loyang? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Z-23? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Kidd? Kill DDs and CA/Ls! Literally any other DD I can't be bothered to type out? Kill DDs and CA/Ls!

Did you forget that all other destroyers at the same tier can still hit destroyers and cruisers with their torpedoes? (Apart from Pan-Asian, but they've at least got the gunpower to kill DDs)

 

How are you still so stubborn that you can't see this?

[lameoll]

16 hours ago, Pikkozoikum said:

The Shimakaze has the worst winrate of all destroyers, because it has nothing good

the shima probably has the worst winrate because everyone plays her like  long range torpedo spammers. 

[ShinGetsu]

I consider Chung-Mu to be "almost" a better Fletcher personally. It's a Fletcher so it got the guns to bully DDs, and even CLs sometimes, and the torpedoes are monstruous at killing everything else. The other day I killed a Minotaur and got two hits on a Neptune in their own smoke with Chung-Mu torpedoes. They reload quite fast, does great damage, and are basically unavoidable if you don't use WASD.haggs or hydro.

Only downside is the inability to torp smoked DDs, which is usually a good part of my kills in Harekaze/Lo Yang / Other DDs. (However the only real downside compared to Fletcher is the lack of DefAA.)

 

But with Asashio, the simple fact I'm unable to bully CA is a nope in my books.

[BeauNidl3]

7 minutes ago, ShinGetsu said:

I consider Chung-Mu to be "almost" a better Fletcher personally. It's a Fletcher so it got the guns to bully DDs, and even CLs sometimes, and the torpedoes are monstruous at killing everything else. The other day I killed a Minotaur and got two hits on a Neptune in their own smoke with Chung-Mu torpedoes. They reload quite fast, does great damage, and are basically unavoidable if you don't use WASD.haggs or hydro.

Only downside is the inability to torp smoked DDs, which is usually a good part of my kills in Harekaze/Lo Yang / Other DDs. (However the only real downside compared to Fletcher is the lack of DefAA.)

 

But with Asashio, the simple fact I'm unable to bully CA is a nope in my books.

 

I have kept both Fletcher and Chung Mu while having Gearing and Yueyang, I like them enough that I've got the perma camo on both from the recent discounts, they're excellent DD's.

 

I've also got quite a few Premium DD's (most of them now I think on it), but no way am I planning to buy the Asashio, it's a cardboard cutout of a ship, so one dimensional that it has no appeal to me and having seen so many played so badly it confirmed my decision. It's not that it's likely to be too hard to play, I can DD reasonably well, it just has no redeeming features other than being equal best concealment at the tier.

[Pikkozoikum]

5 hours ago, lameoll said:

the shima probably has the worst winrate because everyone plays her like  long range torpedo spammers. 

Funfact I tryed the 16 km torps in ranked, and that worked pretty well. The detection range is terrible yes. But what is more terrible? Short range, when you can't drop torps because of radar and good positioning of bbs far away. Better drop torps on high range with low chance to hit, then drop no torps. And I got a lot hits with this torps. Somtimes I really saw how bad the detection range is and ships easily dodged them, but there was also often the case, that I could drop them pretty nice with flooding and stuff. The 16 km torps have one advantage beside the range. Nobody expects them. xD

 

 

[Pikkozoikum]

6 hours ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

According to this reddit thread (yes, I'm aware it's an Overwatch reddit thread, please bare with me):

Skill floor is how bad you can be.

Skill ceiling is how good you can be.

 

The skill floor for Asashio is low because if you get bad MM (something like 5DD, 5CA/CL, 1BB and 1CV) there is effectively nothing you can ever really hope to achieve in Asashio.

The skill ceiling is low for Asashio because it doesn't matter how good you are at the DD playstyle, you will never be as good as another destroyer that actually fits the playstyle better. Sure, you can torpedo all five of the enemy BBs, but what do you do then? What if all of your BBs die simultaneously to you torping all of the enemy BBs? All that's left is DDs and Cruisers (and CVs) - and you cannot hope to win against any of them.

 

Yamato was a propaganda stunt.

She was basically shouting out to the world "HEY! We've built the biggest battleship ever in only 100years of modernisation! WE! ARE! THE! BEST!"

They even kept Yamato's gun calibre a secret until long after the war - the allies belived she was equipped with 16" guns - because they feared they could be accused of warcrimes for developing a gun so devastatingly powerful.

I want reply to two of your points (not meant to be just against you, more to share my opinion)

 

First the Prpaganda stunt: I don't  think that. First they built two of those ships, for a proganda it would need only one. Second: Battle ships are [edited]expensive and cost so much time. Japan doesn't have the resources and time to do just a proganda stunt. They thought battle ships would win the pacific war from 40 km range to the battle field. Instead of building two monster Battle ships, they could have build 2-4 carrier vessels, which actucally won the war. So They were built and they also had the advantage that they could use it for proganada and not the other way.

 

Second: The case of just one BB in match making would be really bad for Asashio. Yes it would lessen the potential, but that doesn't make it so bad. If you are able to take out this one bb, then you're a player that just take out another player, totally worth. Rest would be spotting, capping and smoking mates.

Also, when I compare that with the gameplay of the Shimakaze in Clan battles: There were not few matches, where I couldn't hit anything with my torps because of the island hugging and safe play and also because of the radar. Those torps can hit every ship type, but They don't hit. Technically it's the same gameplay like the Asashio with no bbs ^^'

 

[HaachamaShipping]

23 hours ago, Pikkozoikum said:

Guess even the good players sit in smokes to use the gun. Maybe not in a Clan battle, but in the random battles for sure. Everyone wants to deal dmg. And that is kinda sad, because I love stuff like spotting dmg. That should be more rewarded. For example it should shown up like own dmg. The number above the hit ship, but instead of white maybe in a golden color. That would be amazing if you see how a ship gets hitten for 20k in a golden number and you know, "I provided that hit"

Btw nice clan name *looking at my profile picture of the Kaga*

Good players know when to smoke and when to spot. If you smoke despite being the one vital to provide vision you messed up, because then you basically can't even see anything you would shoot at and are prone to getting some other DD launch a volley of surprise torpedoes at you. Good way to die.

 

And you already can just provide spotting and see the damage counter go up. 

19 hours ago, hollowbaron said:

I suppose im not a good asashio player then for getting 200k damage in a t10 battle and being top.

 

I suppose your probably a trump fan. Just shine the palle of the one who claims to have the biggest [edited] but probably cant even use it.

 

My guess is the whole reason you started this topic is because your a bb main and get pissed off when playing mossouri when the radar does not prevent you from being torped.

 

Funny thing is im bb main as well, but I don't [edited] about dd just cv. But if I did [edited] about dd i'd be direct, not try to wrap this up like a stealth suggestion to get the asashio removed from sale like kamikaze.

 

But some seem convinced because they walk with a sterling silver walking stick they can use it to direct troops and resources.

I started this topic and I play about as much DD as I play BB and I already wrote in the first post, this ship doesn't terrorise me as a BB, it just ruins my game experiences as a DD. Not by killing me, but because of factors I described at length before in this thread.

13 hours ago, VC381 said:

I've seen a couple played that badly and I see the argument that because it can, it might encourage bad play. But on average the ones I've seen have been about equal in impact to most DDs in random. I see enough other DDs doing stupid things, I would rather have a camping Asashio that might eventually get lucky than a YOLO Benson that just gives first blood for nothing and flames the rest of the game.

 

I like what Asashio offers, the anti capital ship alpha strike nicely captures IJN design philosophy.

Both don't get crap done. The real question though is not just, which of them do you want on your team. It's also, which of them do you want on the enemy team? I mean, both are a waste of a DD. But with the Benson, an idiot Benson is hardly a threat to most people. An idiot Asashio is a potential threat until it is dead or potatoes so hard that it becomes obvious they are too dumb. I for my part would prefer if gameplay and results were more skill-based and players encouraged to actually learn the game, not farm meaningless damage, not realise how meaningless it was and what they should have done, because for once they got those 6-digit numbers and didn't die within 5 minutes.

 

Also, the IJN DDs following the Fubuki design were planned to not just be torpedoin BBs. They were designed in general as all-round ships that could hit larger ships than themselves with torpedoes, not just BBs. And most of their WWII victims were cruisers and not BBs.

11 hours ago, VC381 said:

I disagree about the skill ceiling. Surely the fact it can't do some of the things people expect of a DD very well makes it a high skill ceiling ship to actually make the most of the things it does do well. Low skill floor, yes, easy to farm safe damage. But actually playing around the other weaknesses to make that anti-BB potential truly impactful, I would say that's high skill ceiling.

No, that is not how skill ceiling is defined.

9 hours ago, ShinGetsu said:

Erm, I'm not using the same definition for Skill Floor and Ceiling.

 

Skill Floor for me means "the minimum skill required to make it somewhat work."

Asashio skill floor is low because even a monkey could hit some torpedoes by spamming those 20 km in the general direction of braindead battleships.

Akizuki skill floor is high because using properly a DD that handles like a battleship is far from easy.

 

Asashio skill ceiling is low too, because it has very low potential in good hands. Like you said : once you killed all BBs with your """""superior"""" torpedo aiming skill, what then ? You're useless for the whole match.

Akizuki skill ceiling is incredibly high. A good player will wipe the floor with every DDs, get the caps, and still manage to get some torpedos hits despites having only 5 or 10 torpedoes every 3 minutes ; and will even spam BBs from smoke for very decent damage in a crossfiring position from the allies. She's a carry machine, able to do devastating damage on the most important targets ingame. And as a bonus, you can feed her with planes.

 

The players in reddit defines the "high skill floor" by "minimum potential". Basically he defines a high skill floor by what I define a low skill floor. It's a difference of perspective I guess.

 

 

So, for me : "high skill floor, high skill ceiling" means "high risks, high rewards." while "low floor, low ceiling" means "easy to handle, but very limited potential".

Also, while I'm at it, I define overpowered by "low floor, high ceiling".

Pretty much.

[LOZFFVII]

On 11/05/2018 at 8:57 PM, Pikkozoikum said:

Second: The case of just one BB in match making would be really bad for Asashio. Yes it would lessen the potential, but that doesn't make it so bad. If you are able to take out this one bb, then you're a player that just take out another player, totally worth. Rest would be spotting, capping and smoking mates.

Did you forget how the matchmaker works?

12 ships per team. Soft cap of 5 of one ship class per team. Hard cap of 1 Carrier at T6+.

This means that in a situation of 1BB, there MUST be 5/6 DDs or CL/As and/or 1CV. Now remember that we've recently gained mirrored matchmaking, meaning that a T8 IJN DD will be countermatched by a T8 IJN DD. Also remember that Asashio has terrible AA defences.

On 11/05/2018 at 8:57 PM, Pikkozoikum said:

Rest would be spotting, capping and smoking mates.

All of which a Kagerou can also do, and arguably can do better because of the potential to torpedo enemy DDs and CL/As.

Not forgetting that a CV will ALWAYS be better than a DD at spotting, unless he gets deplaned.

And if the CV spots Asashio there's not an effing thing said Asashio can do about it! Sure, you can say the same thing about Kagerou, but at least she can still torpedo DDs and CL/As!

 

On 11/05/2018 at 8:57 PM, Pikkozoikum said:

Instead of building two monster Battle ships, they could have build 2-4 carrier vessels, which actucally won the war. So They were built and they also had the advantage that they could use it for proganada and not the other way.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, no?

Pretty much everyone in the world at the time thought Battleships were the ultimate in naval warfare. Only the US really realised how much more important it was to build carriers, and even then it took them until late in the war to do so.

Giant battleships were built as a statement of naval supremacy, and that is a simple fact.

One of the main reasons Japan went to war with the States was to try and remove the embargo on their fuel imports, which were imposed on them due to their brutality in taking over mainland Asia. For that they devised a plan of Large Battleship Fleets meeting and exchanging fire, which would then mean the bigger and more powerful ships with the bigger and more powerful guns installed on them would win.

[Pikkozoikum]

14 minutes ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

[...]

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, no?

Pretty much everyone in the world at the time thought Battleships were the ultimate in naval warfare. Only the US really realised how much more important it was to build carriers, and even then it took them until late in the war to do so.

Giant battleships were built as a statement of naval supremacy, and that is a simple fact.

One of the main reasons Japan went to war with the States was to try and remove the embargo on their fuel imports, which were imposed on them due to their brutality in taking over mainland Asia. For that they devised a plan of Large Battleship Fleets meeting and exchanging fire, which would then mean the bigger and more powerful ships with the bigger and more powerful guns installed on them would win.

 

No idea what the point of "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, no?". There is no context to my post.

 

The topic was, that Yamato-class ships were built for propaganda, but that's not the reason... they were built, because they thought, that Battleships are the most powerful weapons, and they used them for propaganda. The Propaganda was a side effect.

 

I was also explaining, that it would make no sense to built a battleship for propaganda. Battleships are way to expensive just for propaganda. And I explained, they built them, because they thought, they were good.

[LOZFFVII]

9 minutes ago, Pikkozoikum said:

No idea what the point of "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, no?". There is no context to my post.

With hindsight, we all know today that it was Aircraft Carriers that won the war.

16 minutes ago, Pikkozoikum said:

The topic was, that Yamato-class ships were built for propaganda, but that's not the reason... they were built, because they thought, that Battleships are the most powerful weapons, and they used them for propaganda. The Propaganda was a side effect.

 

I was also explaining, that it would make no sense to built a battleship for propaganda. Battleships are way to expensive just for propaganda. And I explained, they built them, because they thought, they were good.

In 193X (whenever the Yamamto-class were built, IDR) they believed that giant battleships were the be-all-end-all ultimate symbol of naval power, thus if you could build the biggest battleship afloat that would be a huge propaganda boost to morale. They built them BECAUSE it would make good propaganda!

Most carriers at the time weren't even taken into serious consideration for naval combat, thus it made more sense to the people of the time to build a massive, expensive floating hunk of steel with huge guns than to build something comparitively smaller with smaller flying metal thingies with much less direct application of force. Carriers weren't built BECUASE they wouldn't make good propaganda!

[Pikkozoikum]

14 minutes ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

With hindsight, we all know today that it was Aircraft Carriers that won the war.

In 193X (whenever the Yamamto-class were built, IDR) they believed that giant battleships were the be-all-end-all ultimate symbol of naval power, thus if you could build the biggest battleship afloat that would be a huge propaganda boost to morale. They built them BECAUSE it would make good propaganda!

Most carriers at the time weren't even taken into serious consideration for naval combat, thus it made more sense to the people of the time to build a massive, expensive floating hunk of steel with huge guns than to build something comparitively smaller with smaller flying metal thingies with much less direct application of force. Carriers weren't built BECUASE they wouldn't make good propaganda!

 

 "Hey, lets built for 5 years two huge ships, that we make only for propaganda, instead of building ships, that we could use for winning a war"

 

Again: It's not about hindsight, it's about the logically explanation, why they definetly didn't built battleships because of propaganda. That's not the reason for building them. You can use them for propaganda, but you built them for war.

[LOZFFVII]

32 minutes ago, Pikkozoikum said:

 "Hey, lets built for 5 years two huge ships, that we make only for propaganda, instead of building ships, that we could use for winning a war"

This has already gone too far off-topic, but let me clarify this as clear as I can muster:

The Pre-War Japanese naval designers and shipbuilders did NOT know that Aircraft Carriers would win the war. What they did know was that Aircraft Carriers do not garner a lot of propaganda and that Battleships, the ships they believed would win any future conflicts, would garner a lot of propaganda if they were BIG and POWERFUL.

Thus they built really, reeeeaaaalllllly effing big Battleships!

 

On topic:

There's nothing more I can say about Asashio that hasn't already been said (both by me and other commentors).

[dCK_Ad_Hominem]

On 11.5.2018 at 3:57 PM, ShinGetsu said:

I consider Chung-Mu to be "almost" a better Fletcher personally. It's a Fletcher so it got the guns to bully DDs, and even CLs sometimes, and the torpedoes are monstruous at killing everything else. The other day I killed a Minotaur and got two hits on a Neptune in their own smoke with Chung-Mu torpedoes. They reload quite fast, does great damage, and are basically unavoidable if you don't use WASD.haggs or hydro.

Only downside is the inability to torp smoked DDs, which is usually a good part of my kills in Harekaze/Lo Yang / Other DDs. (However the only real downside compared to Fletcher is the lack of DefAA.)

 

But with Asashio, the simple fact I'm unable to bully CA is a nope in my books.

Well, I used heavy xp bonuses on my chung mu. Dealt a bit less damage than with fletcher, but then again I ran radar instead of smoke and didn't use my guns as often. However: 24 games, 82%wr. Being that the Fletcher itself is a tX in disguise this is really worrying. And I have no doubt the Chung Mu is just as strong, if not stronger. 

[Pikkozoikum]

3 hours ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

This has already gone too far off-topic, but let me clarify this as clear as I can muster:

The Pre-War Japanese naval designers and shipbuilders did NOT know that Aircraft Carriers would win the war. What they did know was that Aircraft Carriers do not garner a lot of propaganda and that Battleships, the ships they believed would win any future conflicts, would garner a lot of propaganda if they were BIG and POWERFUL.

Thus they built really, reeeeaaaalllllly effing big Battleships!

 

On topic:

There's nothing more I can say about Asashio that hasn't already been said (both by me and other commentors).

[HaachamaShipping]

On 5/11/2018 at 9:57 PM, Pikkozoikum said:

Second: The case of just one BB in match making would be really bad for Asashio. Yes it would lessen the potential, but that doesn't make it so bad. If you are able to take out this one bb, then you're a player that just take out another player, totally worth. Rest would be spotting, capping and smoking mates.

Also, when I compare that with the gameplay of the Shimakaze in Clan battles: There were not few matches, where I couldn't hit anything with my torps because of the island hugging and safe play and also because of the radar. Those torps can hit every ship type, but They don't hit. Technically it's the same gameplay like the Asashio with no bbs ^^'

Asashio cannot play Clan Battles. And if you can't make Shimakaze work in competitive, then it might be a good sign to evaluate the choice of ship and prepare a ship that better suits you for next season or adapt the playstyle to be more useful, whichever conclusion you might arrive at.

 

If you get thrown into a match where there only is one BB per side and you take out the single enemy BB, then yes, you took out one enemy. In such matchups though, BBs matter far less, because the fewer BBs there are, the more freedom cruisers have and the more they can dominate. So, that single BB kill isn't that groundbreaking, given BBs inherently are the class with least utility only bringing damage and durability to the table. If the BB is lower tier, then you actually didn't even trade well, though in general it is questionable whether that single BB kill makes up for your team being down half a DD from the start. As a top tier DD, you also can cope with being worse than most other DDs in the matchup and the enemy likely has a less limited boat with more fighting power.

7 hours ago, Captain_LOZFFVII said:

Did you forget how the matchmaker works?

12 ships per team. Soft cap of 5 of one ship class per team. Hard cap of 1 Carrier at T6+.

This means that in a situation of 1BB, there MUST be 5/6 DDs or CL/As and/or 1CV. Now remember that we've recently gained mirrored matchmaking, meaning that a T8 IJN DD will be countermatched by a T8 IJN DD. Also remember that Asashio has terrible AA defences.

Matchmaker goes by tier and class, not by nation.

Spoiler

 

Also, it's going offtopic, but it should be worthwhile to take into consideration a few things when talking about Yamato-class vs carriers:

• The role of aviation was underestimated by all major powers at the beginning of the conflict and before. It's why for example the naval treaties in the interwar era deemed it perfectly fine to convert battleships and battlecruisers into carriers, considering them less problematic this way. Only during the war, aviation showed its influence and here, the Japanese were kind of among the pioneers, with the establishment of the Kido Butai, the sinking of Force Z and the attack on Pearl Harbour (influenced by the RN attack on Taranto). To say that Japan was negligient of the role of aviation is a bit misleading, when in the general context noone appreciated it to the degree they should have.
• Similarly, while the Yamato-class was being constructed, the IJN did construct the Shokaku-class carriers and later the Taihou, for their time quite modern designs that were pretty capable. As to why the IJN built the Yamato-class instead of building more carriers, it might be worth considering that the general thought among most naval powers was that BBs win the decisive battles and that the IJN upon exiting the naval treaties had already 2 large carriers from the 20s modernised in the 30s (Akagi and Kaga) and two relatively modern carriers built under the treaty limitations (Souryuu and Hiryuu), which were equally matched to what most other major naval powers had. In battleships however, the IJN had four venerable battlecruiser reclassified battleships (Kongou-class), which they wanted to replace as soon as possible with a proper cruiser killer design, 4 pretty dated battleships of the Fusou and Ise-class and two battleships of the Nagato-class. Compared to the plentitude of ships the US and the British had of these types, which typically were more modern too. The Yamatos in their quality were to follow the overall Japanese plan to outclass the enemy in quality and thus make do with only building few battleships, not a ton of them.
• As soon as the war showed carriers to be valuable, the major powers all shifted priorities to this new type of vessel. The IJN was no different, abandonning construction of all additional BBs and instead ordering first the G-15 design of an improved Taihou (the Hakuryu ingame) and then falling back to the Unryuu-class design, which was a cheap design to get by with the limits the war imposed as Japan's situation worsened.
• In Japanese considerations, the war was supposed to be short, with a quick expansion, forcing the enemy to the table for peace after a decisive battle. Leading figures of war planning like Yamamoto were aware that this was the only way to "win". Thus, it should be considered how the Yamato-class impacted the balance of power in the Pacific in the early war, where they provided a much needed boost to the IJN BB force, while the Japanese naval aviation was already top notch for the time. Had the USN acted according to the Japanese plan (and its own pre-war plans) and given a decisive battle, it might have allowed the Yamato-class to play a decisive role. Overall, this never played out this way and only as the war dragged on, the BBs became increasingly outclassed by carriers, especially as the Essex-class started entering the stage. By then, the IJN could have used the Yamato-class funding maybe to build 3 more Taihous, it would have hardly mattered in a balance of power of 4 Taihous vs dozens of Essex-class CVs. And the Japanese weren't utter morons to entrust all their hopes into this, for they felt pressured into this war by the US. While it is up for debate whether the oil embargo and the "unbearable" consequences constitute a valid reason for starting another war in the area and while exploring the complex situation of the time in detail would derail this thread even further, it might be fair assessment to say that the Japanese acted rationally from the knowledge they had and that their assessment of the value of ship types was not necessarily any more backwards than any other navy.
• During the war, battleships still posed a credible threat to carriers, especially early war, when carrier tactics were still based on peacetime training. As late as 1944, surface engagements played an important role in the Battle of Leyte and heavy IJN forces did threaten important American forces. So, the Yamato-class wasn't exactly a ship without any value, even if the ship did not do much. Like the Tirpitz, the ship mostly did not achieve a lot because of the overall limitations of Axis forces and how the war developed. They did however constitute both a certain degree of Fleet-in-Being and for both the Allies put in extra effort to make sure these ships were sunk, to remove the threat they posed.

Lastly, none of the ships the IJN constructed was built solely for propaganda. The Yamato itself was shrouded in such a veil of secrecy that it became a myth first in the navy among those who witnessed her and in the post-war era when the sacrifice of the Yamato was kind of glorified and seen as symbolic for the declining favours of the Japanese war situation. During the construction of Yamato, the ships were obscured by trying to declare their cost as just another batch of Kageros to make them seem less significant, the gun caliber was understated, the details on the ship were only revealed post-war and even then only after several years, as early on the designers tried hard to destroy any plans. It would appear reasonable that the IJN did not build ships just for propaganda, given that as early as the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese war and the formulation of the 8-8 fleet plans, the IJN had to battle against the economic limitations of the Japanese budget, so they had to try get the most out of the money they had and the treaty limits they got. There was no room for investing in just some bragging rights, every vessel would need to give its utmost (which is why ships like the Kongous were retained until they sunk, as their replacements were costly) to make up for the lack in quantity. If the Japanese did try to manipulate the public image, it typically involved understating the value of ships, first to avoid admitting that they violated treaty limitations (like on the Mogamis, which were given the 155 mm guns only so they could be listed as light cruisers with nominal displacement of 10,000 tons), later to avoid showing what they considered the ace up their sleeve.

 

But I bet if these ships had not figured into the actual plan to win the war, then the Imperial Diet would never have funded them, just like they refused to fund the excessive naval budget proposals before, given how they had to finance also the army (who hated the Navy and competed for funding) and generally avoid bancruptcy (which is why the 8-8 fleet got originally declined, as it would have cost more than the Empire could've paid).

 

On-topic part of this: The DDs were generally designed like pretty much all ship classes to be outclassing enemy DDs in all categories, thus getting 6 guns and more torpedo tubes with better torpedoes. They were to act in a decisive battle torpedoing the enemy fleet from stand-off ranges, but not just BBs, but all ships. I'd say, arguing the Asashio is an expression of IJN naval doctrine flies in the face of the doctrine that all ships would need to be able to do their best and make up for their limited numbers.