isn't Alaska missing 30mm of armour penetration on his ap?

[Flavio1997]

now, a small opening:

i'm loving the alaska, way more than kronstad, it feels as a ship that rewards good aim and punishes mistakes ( both mine and of the enemies), in certain situation it becomes a bb ( against 381mm opponents), it has great utility thanks to the ability of slotting radar and hydro a the same time, making it a nightmare for dds ( cvs usually won't attack you anyways)

 

but i started noticing sometimes a bit of lack of penetration, until a youtube comment on one of the CC's review let me notice that alaska is missing a tad bit of penetration.

Now, i know that those are not tested values ( it would have been hard to test), but usually wows is quite close to the navweaps penetration values ( as they both use the Empirical Formula for Armor Penetration), and you can see ( looking at the site http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_12-50_mk8.php) and from the armada/wows artillery chart) that the alaska is missing about 30mm of penetration across the board.

 

Now this might not look like much, but it has some consequences in game, especially against bbs at shorter ranges, for examples at 9.2) kms the difference is 460mm for the site and 430mm of in-game-pen ( 425mm at  10 kms for the new armada video) , that's the difference between a shatter/bounce and a penetration/citadel on tier 10 bbs that shows the side. Another, maybe even stronger example is at the distance where the alaska get spotted, so around 12.2 kms: at that distance the in-game reported pen is 381mm, the site reports a 395mm pen at 13.7 kms ( 1.5 kms longer range, in which the in-game pen is a bit less than 360mm), so at that distance it should be around 415mms, the difference between challenge a slightly angled tier 9-8bbs belt/citadel and not.

 

I know that i'm probably splitting hairs here, but imho it would be a nice change to make.

what do you think?

[Bics93]

Maybe is a balancing feature: Alaska already has better tanking capabilities, more consistent guns and better AA than Kronstadt (the best tier 9 cruiser on WoWs Numbers stats-wise) while retaining the same utility with radar; the only advantage that Kronstadt have is the AP pen.

If you buff Alaska you risk to have the “Stalingrad-Moskva syndrome”, where a ship will almost completely replace the other as it can have the same role with better results.

[Spellfire40]

Plus using the US cruiser lower autobouce angles on Alaskas gun. lower pen is a low price to pay. as long as you dont aim for BB main belts your shells pen plenty good.

[Flavio1997]

39 minutes ago, Bics93 said:

Maybe is a balancing feature: Alaska already has better tanking capabilities, more consistent guns and better AA than Kronstadt (the best tier 9 cruiser on WoWs Numbers stats-wise) while retaining the same utility with radar; the only advantage that Kronstadt have is the AP pen.

If you buff Alaska you risk to have the “Stalingrad-Moskva syndrome”, where a ship will almost completely replace the other as it can have the same role with better results.

 

30 minutes ago, Spellfire40 said:

Plus using the US cruiser lower autobouce angles on Alaskas gun. lower pen is a low price to pay. as long as you dont aim for BB main belts your shells pen plenty good.

ok, but what i don't get is, why if the other ships follow the same rule, alaska doesn't? especially because this is not something that changes stuff against his primary target ( cruiser) but against bbs

[wilkatis_LV]

Comparing values listed in the navweaps to values we have in game ( https://mustanghx.github.io/ship_ap_calculator/ ) Alaska's missing around 10...15mm across the board, not 30. Still, they are missing.

 

4 minutes ago, Flavio1997 said:

what i don't get is, why if the other ships follow the same rule, alaska doesn't?

Game balancing, ever so slight reduction of power for something very specific

[Bics93]

19 minuti fa, Flavio1997 ha scritto:

ok, but what i don't get is, why if the other ships follow the same rule, alaska doesn't? especially because this is not something that changes stuff against his primary target ( cruiser) but against bbs

 

As I already said: for balance purpose, Alaska is already a very strong platform in many aspects and because it is a cruiser killer I think it’s fair to reduce a bit its capabilities against BBs, let Kronstadt punish that kind of broadside