HMS Warspite

[TienKan]

I just bought the new Premium ship HMS Warspite, and noticed the gun range is 16.km, which seemed a bit short,

 

from the world of warships news page

In 1934, she underwent major modernization in Portsmouth. Improvements were made to her superstructure, aircraft facilities as well as propulsion and weapons systems. After heavy battle damage off Crete, Warspite was refitted and upgunned in the USA in late 1941 - this version of the ship is the one represented in World of Warships. In a similar configuration – only with even more AA guns -  the vessel took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, providing gunfire support for Allied troops landing on Gold Beach on June 6, 1944.

 

1916

The 15-inch (381 mm) gun turned out to be a complete success in service. It was reliable and extremely accurate, being able to drop tight groups of shells at 20,000 yards (18,000 m). Poor shell design reduced its effectiveness at the Battle of Jutland, but this was addressed with the arrival of the superior "Green Boy" shells in 1918

 

In 1939

The original 15-inch turrets were upgraded to increase the elevation of the guns by ten degrees, providing a further 9,000 yards of range to a maximum of 32,300 yd (29.5 km) with a 6crh shell.

 

Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940

During the battle Warspite achieved one of the longest range gunnery hits from a moving ship to a moving target in history, hitting the Giulio Cesare at a range of approximately 24km (26,000 yards),^[51] the other being a shot from Scharnhorst which hit Glorious at approximately the same distance in June 1940.

 

1941

In June 1941, Warspite departed Alexandria for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in the United States, arriving there on 11 August,^[25] having travelled through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean to Ceylon, stopping at Manila, then Pearl Harbor and finallyEsquimalt along the way.^[75] Repairs and modifications began in August, including the replacement of her deteriorated 15 in guns, the addition of more anti-aircraft weapons, improvements to the bridge, and new surface and anti-aircraft radar.^[76] Warspite was still at the shipyard when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and went on alert as she would have been one of the few ships in the harbour which could have provided anti-aircraft defence should the Japanese have struck east.

D-Day 1944

At 0500 on 6 June Warspite was the first ship to open fire,^[100] bombarding the German battery at Villerville from a position 26,000 yards (23.77km) offshore, to support landings by the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach.^[83] She continued bombardment duties on 7 June, firing over 300 shells.

 

Just a few facts from WW!! about Warspite, from its commission in 1912 its range has never been shorter than 20km, and holds the joint world record of all time of a moving ship hitting another moving ship ie 24km.

so saying you are releasing the ship in 1941 specs with 16.3km gun range is not accurate sadly. I still bought it though, but it's not all it could be sorry to say.

On a brighter note I am happy with game, its brilliant. I guess it's a British thing.

 

[Hedgehog1963]

If you look around a little yopu'll see this has already been discussed in other threads.

[Lightbaron]

[TienKan]

We should make our points clear and factual and present them politely not shoot each other down, joining forces in asking for clarification if possible from the chaps who kindly make the game possible.

[Hauptbahnhof]

We should make our points clear and factual and present them politely not shoot each other down, joining forces in asking for clarification if possible from the chaps who kindly make the game possible.

 

Why should we ask for clarification when we already received it? They already posted multiple replies all over the forums explaining why all Battleships in WoWs have lower range then the theoretical maximum range of the real guns. No Battleship ever scored hits on the maximum range, so the maximum range in the game is limited based on rangefinders size and location to better model the distance where accurate and fairly reliable hits could be made in practice ( and no one single lucky shell does not count as this ).

 

Not having tried out the warspite myself it seems like a pretty well balanced ship based on stats and what others have posted.

 

Positive:

Extremely good turning radius to dodge torps with and superior armor, as well as bigger guns then the Japanese enemies in the same tier.

 

Negative:

Lower range and low speed as well as slightly slower turning radius of turrets.

[YukiEiriKun]

Official truth from WG states clearly that her rangefinders, which are only 4,5 meters wide, are the cause for the effective range to be the said 16 km.

 

And that the turret rotation of 2 degree/second is historical.

 

So there.

[HMS_Britannia]

Official truth from WG states clearly that her rangefinders, which are only 4,5 meters wide, are the cause for the effective range to be the said 16 km.

 

And that the turret rotation of 2 degree/second is historical.

 

So there.

So how can they on one hand say they are using correct historical fact/ numbers for turret traverse and them completely ignore historical fact/ numbers for the guns range, 

 

also range finders have absolutely nothing to do with how far a gun can fire only on how accurate it is at the various distances.

 

face it WG you messed this one up all that is required to satisfy most people is a simple buff to say 18-20 km gun range, you can even take away the great turning circle as compensation

[TienKan]

I can see I am late coming to this discussion, as most posters have attested much posting on other ships with a similar issue.

Although I quote 1916 admiralty testing for the Warspite.

"The 15-inch (381 mm) gun turned out to be a complete success in service. It was reliable and extremely accurate, being able to drop tight groups of shells at 20,000 yards (18,000 m)."

18km may bear out what most people are saying about proper effective range for accurate hits over lucky hits etc.

But that was 1916 for goodness sake, not 1941. I have not idea what several refits may have done to gun range since 1916.

[shrapnel_bait]

I don't know why there are so many complaints about the stats for Warspite, even if you have bought the ship your going to lose it and get your gold back at the end of the CBT, so if your unhappy with it then don't buy it again once the OBT starts. I bought the ship this morning but haven't had a chance to try it yet, if I don't like it then once the OBT starts I will have 7,500 gold to spend on something else.

[FemboyWaifu]

I don't know why there are so many complaints about the stats for Warspite, even if you have bought the ship your going to lose it and get your gold back at the end of the CBT, so if your unhappy with it then don't buy it again once the OBT starts. I bought the ship this morning but haven't had a chance to try it yet, if I don't like it then once the OBT starts I will have 7,500 gold to spend on something else.

 

Well ofc there's going to be complaints since Wargaming logic is so unreasonable this will likely be the only British ship ingame for maybe a year or more after OBT starts.

[Drachinifel]

 

Why should we ask for clarification when we already received it? They already posted multiple replies all over the forums explaining why all Battleships in WoWs have lower range then the theoretical maximum range of the real guns. No Battleship ever scored hits on the maximum range, so the maximum range in the game is limited based on rangefinders size and location to better model the distance where accurate and fairly reliable hits could be made in practice ( and no one single lucky shell does not count as this ).

 

Not having tried out the warspite myself it seems like a pretty well balanced ship based on stats and what others have posted.

 

Positive:

Extremely good turning radius to dodge torps with and superior armor, as well as bigger guns then the Japanese enemies in the same tier.

 

Negative:

Lower range and low speed as well as slightly slower turning radius of turrets.

 

Except Warspite's rangefinders were twice the size they are claiming by 1941

[shrapnel_bait]

Finally tried Warspite out, I agree with a lot of the comments made about the ship, it's slow but manoeuvrable, you can easily dodge incoming gun fire from other battle ships and torpedoes from aircraft, got targeted by two torpedo bomber squadrons and managed to avoid all but one torpedo and I didn't take a single hit from an enemy battleship. The down side is the lack of range of the main guns and,surprisingly, the manoeuvrability can also be a negative because the turrets turn slower than the ship if you are not careful you can end up continuously trying to lock onto a target as you lose the lock while manoeuvring. When you do hit the target the guns do reasonable damage, and the anti-aircraft defences are on par with other battleships, it does suffer from that bane of all battleships, absolutely abysmal secondary gun accuracy, yet again had more shells hitting the water next to the enemy than were actually hitting it. All in all the Warspite seems to be a reasonable premium battleship for tier 5 it's a pity WG put it at tier 6.

[chaplainDMK]

I can see I am late coming to this discussion, as most posters have attested much posting on other ships with a similar issue.

Although I quote 1916 admiralty testing for the Warspite.

"The 15-inch (381 mm) gun turned out to be a complete success in service. It was reliable and extremely accurate, being able to drop tight groups of shells at 20,000 yards (18,000 m)."

18km may bear out what most people are saying about proper effective range for accurate hits over lucky hits etc.

But that was 1916 for goodness sake, not 1941. I have not idea what several refits may have done to gun range since 1916.

 

The maximum range of battleship guns are pointless numbers. The 15" BL Mk Is had a maximum range of "only" 30 kilometers at 30 degrees elevation firing a "streamlined" shell. Compare this to the 36 kilometer range of the Japanese used Vickers 14" guns on the Fuso, 36 kilometers on the German 15" SK C/34 on the Bismarck and 38 kilometers on the Japanese 16,1" 3rd Year Type from Nagato.

 

Yet still, the "lowly" 15" Mk I on Warspite managed to hit one of the longest recorded naval artillery hits at 24 kilometers. As did the Scharnhorsts puny 11,1" guns, hitting Glorious, also at about 24 kilometers. 

[Drachinifel]

The range is not about the capability of the gun, but the elevation in the turret. The 14" guns on IJN warships could only reach that far because they could elevate to almost 45 degrees. A 15" gun at the same elevation could go further.

[Unintentional_submarine]

My problem with the 'fair reduction' in range is that for the other guns the lost range is pretty much wasted range anyway. Ingame range isn't wasted, while in real life it was until the advent of proper radar rangefinders. Thus I don't think it is fair to point at the loss of 16km for Yamato to claim that to be fair in relation, as she wouldn't have hit any target inside that 'lost' range in any case, while Warspite clearly did. So Yamato gets pretty much 100% out of the theoretical range while Warspite gets very little out of it. This of course doesn't take into account that Warspite loses a hell of lot more percentagewise than either Fuso or Yamato.

[Magni56]

My problem with the 'fair reduction' in range is that for the other guns the lost range is pretty much wasted range anyway. Ingame range isn't wasted, while in real life it was until the advent of proper radar rangefinders. Thus I don't think it is fair to point at the loss of 16km for Yamato to claim that to be fair in relation, as she wouldn't have hit any target inside that 'lost' range in any case, while Warspite clearly did. So Yamato gets pretty much 100% out of the theoretical range while Warspite gets very little out of it. This of course doesn't take into account that Warspite loses a hell of lot more percentagewise than either Fuso or Yamato.

 

Treating singular outliers as a trend in this regard is in and off itself dishonest. Though if you really do wanna go with singular outliers, the White Plains might wanna have a word with you about the Yamato supposedly not being able to score hits inside that "lost" range.

[delaci76]

Atm is rather Warshite than Warspite in my opinion.

 

Sry bad joke but it sums up the situation.

[Unintentional_submarine]

 

Treating singular outliers as a trend in this regard is in and off itself dishonest. Though if you really do wanna go with singular outliers, the White Plains might wanna have a word with you about the Yamato supposedly not being able to score hits inside that "lost" range.

 

I honestly didn't know about that event, it isn't exactly widely publicised. Having had a look at what I could find, which was pretty compelling, I freely admit that I have reversed my position in Yamato's capability to hit within the 'lost' range. And no, a single outlier doesn't count for much, however as I'm sure you are aware, straddling is pretty much considered a hit, and so repeated straddling means that target is within the reliable engagement range. If the shells actually hit the target at long ranges was more down to luck, more if the dispersion was great, less if the opposite obviously. But luck was still a defining attribute, and Warspite was lucky at Calabria, but her luck would count for nothing if her crew hadn't been straddling Gulio Cesare repeatedly. In effect she was engaging within her range of capabilities, if not within her range to reliably physically hit her target. But that is also what happens within the game, at longest ranges we can 'easily' straddle, but actual hits are down to a bit of luck, still it requires people to actually range and lead properly.

 

It doesn't discount the fact that Warspite suffers a much more significant reduction from her capabilities of reliable engagement than Yamato does. If we take the furthest range for the White Plains event, she managed to straddle at around 31100 meters. This is about 3500 meters up from her 27.6km ingame. Meanwhile Warspite straddled at the very least at 24000 meters, which is 7700 meters more than her present range ingame. I wouldn't consider that fair. If we were to use the same percentage in reduction then Warspite would have a range of 21400 meters, and absolute reduction would still be 20500 meters. People are generally asking for a fair bit less.

[chaplainDMK]

 

Treating singular outliers as a trend in this regard is in and off itself dishonest. Though if you really do wanna go with singular outliers, the White Plains might wanna have a word with you about the Yamato supposedly not being able to score hits inside that "lost" range.

 

I think the bigger thing is that the "single outlier" in this situation is to the entire trend. In all of battleship combat ever conducted, the two longest ranged hits were achieved by ships which technically had the least range. This speaks more that theoretical ranges of battleships guns were irrelevant in ship to ship combat, since actual combat ranges were far far lower. Much like how World War 2 rifles had an effective range of well over a kilometer and were pin-point accurate, but realistically most combat was done at far far far shorter ranges. 

 

I think a much better system would be that all battleships had similar engagement ranges, but that with proper armor modeling and proper zone of immunity simulation you'd have situations where even though you could achieve hits on ships far far away, you wouldn't damage them at all. Basically each gun would have an effective range against other ships. Warspite and Yamato wouldn't have much of a difference in when they could engage (yeah Yamato would have more range, but not 2 times the range), but Yamato would be immune to hits by Warspite, while its own guns could rip it apart. 

 

I mean I don't think I ever heard a situation in a battleship to battleship engagement where ships with more than 20 kilometers of range would have to actually dash to bring their guns into range. But you do have a lot of situations where captains dashed their ships to bring them into their zone of immunity. 

[Unintentional_submarine]

 

I think the bigger thing is that the "single outlier" in this situation is to the entire trend. In all of battleship combat ever conducted, the two longest ranged hits were achieved by ships which technically had the least range. This speaks more that theoretical ranges of battleships guns were irrelevant in ship to ship combat, since actual combat ranges were far far lower. Much like how World War 2 rifles had an effective range of well over a kilometer and were pin-point accurate, but realistically most combat was done at far far far shorter ranges.

 

This is probably what I tried to say a few times, and apparently failed to do very well.

 

I disagree on the max range being relatively close on most BBs. It is pretty clear that should the 1941 variant of Warspite come up against Iowa in 1945, Iowa would certainly begin firing at max range, and would most likely begin to straddle at much further ranges than Warspite was capable of. Personally I agree with the people that say that just because Warspite had a very long range hit doesn't mean that she should have a very long range. She shouldn't. But I disagree with the current difference between her and her counterparts, name the Fuso and Kongo. They would have been reasonably even in their engagement envelopes. Probably because all three are WWI legacy ships that were upgraded to fight in a new war. Fuso and Kongo did hold a technical range advantage, but it wasn't on the order of 25% and it wasn't likely to be that much higher in an even engagement, if at all. However, for the sake of gameplay, Warspite having shorter range isn't a problem.

[Hauptbahnhof]

Btw, did anyone try the Warspites HE shells?

According to the stats they are the highest damaging HE shells in the game (6060 max vs 4100 on Fuso), that's more damage then Yamato's HE shells!!!

Base chance to set enemy on fire 35% vs 25% on Fuso.

With the right perks to set enemies on fire reliably I'm thinking that the Warspite with HE loadout might be the solution all Battleships have been complaining about... more reliable non RNG dependent damage output.

 

 

Edit: Max damage of 8 HE shells would be 48480... 

[CloakingDonkey]

Btw, did anyone try the Warspites HE shells?

 

According to the stats they are the highest damaging HE shells in the game (6060 max vs 4100 on Fuso), that's more damage then Yamato's HE shells!!!

 

Base chance to set enemy on fire 35% vs 25% on Fuso.

 

With the right perks to set enemies on fire reliably I'm thinking that the Warspite with HE loadout might be the solution all Battleships have been complaining about... more reliable non RNG dependent damage output.

 

Yes this is something I was asking myself as well. tomorrow is my day off, I'll be testing that... Will report back with my findings =)

[Unintentional_submarine]

Btw, did anyone try the Warspites HE shells?

 

According to the stats they are the highest damaging HE shells in the game (6060 max vs 4100 on Fuso), that's more damage then Yamato's HE shells!!!

 

Base chance to set enemy on fire 35% vs 25% on Fuso.

 

With the right perks to set enemies on fire reliably I'm thinking that the Warspite with HE loadout might be the solution all Battleships have been complaining about... more reliable non RNG dependent damage output.

 

 

Edit: Max damage of 8 HE shells would be 48480... 

I have been wondering this too. If in a different direction.

Warspite has a lot attributes to make her a cruiserkiller, but AP shells tend to do surprisingly bad damage, and cruisers are DPM monsters. However, HE tends to not overpen, and can cause splash. On such big guns they can do a lot of damage, even if the AP, if it hits the right spot, has a higher potential.

 

The fire chance, while improved, is actually a bit worse than Fuso's, on account of Fuso having more guns.

[Remi_Drexel]

Btw, did anyone try the Warspites HE shells?

 

According to the stats they are the highest damaging HE shells in the game (6060 max vs 4100 on Fuso), that's more damage then Yamato's HE shells!!!

 

Base chance to set enemy on fire 35% vs 25% on Fuso.

 

With the right perks to set enemies on fire reliably I'm thinking that the Warspite with HE loadout might be the solution all Battleships have been complaining about... more reliable non RNG dependent damage output.

 

 

Edit: Max damage of 8 HE shells would be 48480... 

 

Can confirm, just 1 shot a cleaveland with HE, neither of us expected that.

[Captain_Edwards]

Just got her today, and was crap with her to begin with. Steadily getting in to the swing of things with her now though and using her like a boss. Just had a game where two Fuso engaged me and another Warspite at 17k. I steamed at an oblique angle and kept zig- zagging when I saw the flash of shots out. Took a few hits, but once the gap closed to sub 15k and I let rip things started to go downhill for the Fuso's. They turned tail and ran for range at first, but aimed at the side of the map and had to reverse course. All the while me and my counterpart where slinging shells out with fair accuracy steadily pounding them down. One decided to about turn then try and go close up with me instead of running. Big mistake, I made scrap of him with my secondaries and main batteries. Second Fuso was finished off by a salvo from a Cleveland that steamed in to support us mid-action. We then cleared them out and won comfortably after that.

 

So the verdict?

 

Solid 7/10 as a BB. Has some flaws and quirks, and could seriously do with a buff to the turret traversal times (which would make it a great 8/10 if not more).

 

Me likey.