UK BBs - what are they about?

[MoveZig]

I'd appreciate a rundown of what's special/unique about this tech tree line compared to other BBs. I'm aiming for Monarch, so remarks on that are appreciated as well.

[ColonelPete]

Dealing damage in any situation.

 

The perculiar thing of UK BB is their high HE damage/penetration and their zombie heal at Tier IX+. They also have short fuses for their AP shells which give them less overpens, but also less citadels.

Otherwise they are just normal BB.

[HaachamaShipping]

Up to Tier 5, they aremostly tanky dreadnoughts with decent firepower, but slow speed. Up to Tier 6, their turret traverse is also horrid. From T6 to T10, their armour becomes all-or-nothing, meaning they got thick belt, but the rest of the ship is protected by minimal plating. Currently from T9, RN BB get a massively improved repair party that keeps them alive despite mediocre armour and low hp pool and announced changes will give a less radical version of improved repair on Tiers 7 and 8 soon. High level RN BBs also have low detection range, meaning they are hard to spot and outspot some same tier cruisers. They also have improved HE shells, while their AP has short fuzes, meaning they detonate faster after penetrating armour. This makes them oft better at deleting cruisers and a bit worse at penetrating BBs where the citadel is not right behind the belt.

 

Overall, RN BBs for scrubs are about throwing HE at long range at anything and farming damage while being hardly useful. For decent to good players, it's about using your concealment advantage to get into good positions, surprise enemies, use HE to deal with targets that think they can bowtank you or DDs.

[AwesomeBoat]

The have amazing HE and better HE pen. I'm pretty sure they also have underwater citadels.

 

Edit: The premium UK BBs look decent IMO. I have the Warspite and it's pretty good. The Nelson is available for free xp (I'm currently saving for it) 

 

Whilst I don't play the UK BBs, that's about all I know about them.

 

Hope this helps.

 

[Infiriel]

For techtree ships there are a few common things:

HE penetration, alpha, and fire chance are insane.

AP is somewhat underwhelming on most tiers - largely due to a small caliber of guns.

You have effectively invulnerable citadel, and generally good armor belt - otherwise your armor is garbage.

Turret faces are garbage - losing turrets is a common occurence.

In tiers 9&10 you also gain superheals.

 

Now lets translate above into human speech:

Most of the time you will spam HE, which is effective against everything, including angled battleships.

You actually lose value by angling because you can`t fire all your guns even though you can`t be punished for showing broadside.

If you angle experienced players will target your turrets, and likely destroy them while still dealing damage.

You are also one of the best close combat ships, as long as torpedoes aren`t involved.

Your primary counters are:
Massive HE spammers (most notably Akizuki, and its succesors)

Torpedoes (torpedoes taken on belt/amidship count as citadel damage, and therefore can`t be healed effectively)

Your own gameplay (because most RN BB players tend to not leave spawn until the game is lost, and then get focused to death between within one cooldown of their repair party.)

[Odo_Toothless]

In theory thay are HE spammers. But I found that using mainly AP (I don't played higher then VIII tier in them) give you higher average damage and kills. Just hold your trigger for a while and look for broadsides anywhere in your range. So ex. KGV spamming HE can do ex. 70K average, but on AP you will be moving to 100k barrier.

 

I realized that, after I saw how good is VI/VII low caliber French AP. At least when not firing at main belt of BB. So I looked at shell comparision and british low caliber AP has even better penetration. So I switched to AP with them too. It turned out, they still can take cruiser in one salvo with right RNG, like other BB.  People are thinking, that You are HE spammer and they often are showing too much :-). Of course HE has it's use ... sometimes.  Using it all the time, no matter what, is a waste of many opportunities.

 

[LiveWire___]

On 6/23/2019 at 2:38 PM, AwesomeBoat said:

The have amazing HE and better HE pen. I'm pretty sure they also have underwater citadels.

 

Edit: The premium UK BBs look decent IMO. I have the Warspite and it's pretty good. The Nelson is available for free xp (I'm currently saving for it) 

 

Whilst I don't play the UK BBs, that's about all I know about them.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I can well recommend Warspite. Apart from being the most battle seasoned battleship in both world wars, she looked great, had an even greater name, and also had said great name stencilled in 4 foot high letters near her stern.

 

Her 15" (hate millimetres) guns can cause concern for pretty much any target, and her secondaries are both numerous and long ranged, esp when specialised for.

 

Her top speed (23 ish knots) is poor, but can be improved with signals. Her rudder shift is good, so that big a$$ of hers can shift when it needs to.

 

Never had many problems with aircraft either.

 

Im also saving for Nelson. Wish it was Rodney, an altogether more famous ship (having whomped the Bismarck), but hey ho. Rodney might have got torps too. I mean, a battleship torping another battleship? Awesome.

[SkollUlfr]

for me, they improve with the shell switch skill.

there is less of a clear distinction between when to use he or ap with the rn bb line.

i dont think i have the patience for them. meaning i get punished for getting to close often when sailing them.

 

playing them a bit like a kongo seems to work ok.

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

For British BBs, definitely get at least one of the Dunkirk brothers via the Armory. They have enhanced Expert Marksman for an even greater buff to turret rotation. You just need to buy enough Dunkirk containers for coal. They also contain useful signals or camos and a remote chance on winning a premium DD.