IJN Aoba (and probably all 8" CA) and what part of my ship to point at a Cleaveland

[havaduck]

So far I have three choices:

 

I can do the cruiser dance or outright point my stern at him and will constantly loose my rudder and engine.

I can present my broadside and get citadell bombed to hell.

I can angle my ships bow at him to minimize damage, but sacrefice firepower.

 

Last one seems nice .... well after more than a few games without beeing able to shoot at cleavelands at all I did some research.

 

The facts (at least from what I could find - corrections wellcome):

Aoba has 1" or ~ 25,4 mm of turret armor.

HE penetration is 1/6 of the gun diameter or in case of a Cleaveland 6"/6=1". Ofc since this is he penetration it will stay the same at all ranges.

 

WG did take take this trolololo aproach on purpose - I am certain about that. So in reality a cleavland can just rofl-drive without a thought broadside on to you, not caring about your angling, and spam you to death with he, and also blow up your turrets.

 

12x7,5 shells per minute coming for your turrets, every single one practically an he AND ap shell - but only the best of both.

 

The Cleaveland in return .... well he does present me his citadell which is _tiny and scattered_ so the damage (rnged ofc) between citadell and overpen isnt that great .... but the real issue is without gdamn turrets you cant shoot a Cleaveland at all.

 

 

Sadly I think this will be annother misconception that will either go without a word at all or "working as intended", as shown by them with intent not releasing any armor stats on "their" ships (remember game <-> reality) because it will "sparc only discussions". 

 

Yes, I want to discuss because everytime some defence is needed "its a beta" and when feedback is given and a discussion is desired ...

Well the whole things sounds a awefull lot like:

 

[Dbars_eu]

The Aoba is a very small profile ship and her guns are one of the most accurate in game.

[mtm78]

Aoba is better when at long distance, but get within 11km or so from a Cleveland and it will hurt ( a LOT! ). 

[OnboardG1]

Fire AP under the Cleveland's bridge tower at the waterline: Profit. Ichase did a video on it.

[Ra97oR]

Sail head on in an Aoba. It have simply the best frontal firepower of any IJN CA at least until the Zao.

 

4 guns at 5.5 rpm is higher than others, which with all the extra turret will only still fire 4 guns directly to the front.

 

On a parallel engagement, you will most likely lose even will some dodging unless you land your torps. I have success however at being extremely aggressive on the Aoba at times, the closer you get, the less angling will disrupt your AP.

 

Cleveland is clearly the odd one out in this tier range, it got far more armour than the Cola and have that pretty crazy barrel count.

[Takeda92]

That's the problem. Cleveland is just too effective against destroyers, cruisers and battleships as well as carriers. There's not a real counter to Cleveland that a Cleveland can't counter as well. For those saying shoot it with AP and profit, well he will also shoot your cruiser with AP and profit because apparently 152mm are good enough to penetrate any cruiser citadel. If you say angle and hide your citadel well a Cleveland will also do that and hide his citadel and he will just out DPM you with HE.

 

And WG wants this abomination to stay in the game until they release the next US cruiser line? 

[Pivke]

what part you point at Cleveland? well your rear! with full speed ahead! while shooting torps out of your [edited]and hope for the best.

 

[mr3awsome]

And WG wants this abomination to stay in the game until they release the next US cruiser line? 

Never fear, its AA is being nerfed soon. That will obviously solve all the problems

 

[Luckyio]

 

what part you point at Cleveland? well your rear! with full speed ahead! while shooting torps out of your [edited]and hope for the best.

 

 

Rapidly lose both engine and rudder and be fish food.

[Pivke]

 

 

Rapidly lose both engine and rudder and be fish food.

 

nah, Aoba aint a destroyer. you dont lose steering/prop so easily. but you will burn guaranted...

[Takeda92]

Never fear, its AA is being nerfed soon. That will obviously solve all the problems

 

 

Yeah, AA nerf will definitely solve the problem I mentioned in my last comment 

[havaduck]

#2 and #4 obviously didnt even read my post .. so yeah....

 

 

 

nah, Aoba aint a destroyer. you dont lose steering/prop so easily. but you will burn guaranted...

 

Sry but thats not true, all the IJN CLs and CAs are all cruisers by name, and the all still lose their critical mudules all the time, even a 0 hp damage _MISS_ of a HE shell can kill your rudder.

 

 

@ Ra97oR Head on was also my tactic but without being sarcastic I'd really like to know how you cope with the loss of your turrets. I have the main battery mod, and every single time at least one turret gets permanently destroyed, and the other one is at least nearly permanently knocked out ..... so that leaves me pretty much with zero turrets infront.

 

And that isnt a bad-luck streak - I did the math in the first post based on available and hopefully correct information (you are free to check and point out mistakes):

 

HE can not bounce and therefore doesnt check for any angling.

HE will penetrate for 1/6 of the guns diameter, and since it does ignore angling, penetration will always be the same.

 

So its no suprise that a 6" gun with 1" penetration reliably destroys a 1" armored turret that doesnt get any bonus from bouncing through angling and increased armor thicknes through angling.

The moment it gets penetrated, again no suprise, the HE will do its work and wreak havoc on the turret.

 

Also ive noticed that knocking out  a turret on a cruiser is pretty much 2-2,5k damage all by itself ..... thats pretty much the 2,2k _max_ he damage of a 6" Cleaveland Shell ..... and just short of a 3,3k AP citadell.

So by attacking heavly angled head on youre showing a kind of "mini citadell" that is kompletly unprotected to his turret piercing high explosive shells. 

 

 

 

[Brett50]

The trouble with pointing straight at the enemy cleveland is that usually that means sailing straight into the enemy lines and unless you want to get wrecked by all of the clevelands friends (as well as the cleveland itself) you have to break off and turn, at which point, you're then presenting your broadside or arse, which brings us back to the original problem

 

[OVanBruce]

Sadly, the most eliable way to take care of a Cleveland in fron of you is by shooting HE at him and try to dodge most of his shells while doing so. Cleveland is still too good for what it should be and it's been like this since alpha.

[Bortasqu]

Cleveland is OP as f*** if you haven't noticed yet, only compare it to a tier 8 or more at the moment.

[MrAceRimmer]

Having now played a few games in a Cleaveland.. I concur it's op, I concur the AA fix wont solve HE spamming Cleavelands and, I love it when a new Mexico goes nope, not letting you get your [redacted] [redacted] HE spam tactic off and slams a broadside of AP right into my citadel (no sarcasm there, had a game where a New Mexico landed the best part of three broadsides on me, the first two bounced or over-penned, not sure which, the third nuked me )

[Broevaharo]

Simply shoot at max range and keep at max range, a Cleveland will have difficulties hitting you because of the long travel time of the shells while the Aobe guns are extremely accurate, keep zigzagging and fire some torps to make him turn which gives you a free citadel shot.

[Coenraad]

Cleveland is just a pain in the [edited]. It has better armor, allot better dpm, faster turret traverse, smaller and split citadel, 4k more health and if i am not mistaken it also turns fastee and in a smaller circle.

So don't feel bad when a Cleve wrecks you, it is just that much better then an Aoba.

The times i killed one 1vs1 were at short ranges, where the AP got on and into the citadel and i used torps.

At longer ranges hitting a citadel is pure luck and hard to do. If he is at an angle use HE and hope you take out some of his turrets while doing decent damage at the same time.

[McCracken666]

Dont forget Aoba's torpedo's, they can do wonders.

 

But i agree, the cleveland is an overall much bette than Aoba, and equally skilled captains then Cleveland will win.

 

[Cirrus4000]

As others have said, just try to stay at range. Dodge where possible and shoot AP.

[Xmen]

The funny thing about this thread is that everybody that say that the Cleveland is OP either :

 

-Dont have the Cleveland (80% of you)

-have the same stats in Cleveland and Aoba (like OP, 51% and 52 % win)

 

There is only one poster in this thread that has better stats in cleveland than the rest of his cruiser but he has played very little number of game with it and he got  44% in cleveland compared to 35 % in the rest of his cruisers....

 

FYI cleveland shells travel extremely slow with a very crappy arc making it very hard to citadel hit thing under 7 k range, because of the angle when it hit the broadside of another ship. You can adjust your aim for the slowness of the shell but you can't do anything about the trajectory. After tier 5 you can't just go in close range like you can in lower tier to compensate that fact because you will get recked very fast.

 

So play Cleveland with the current version of the game get significantly better stats with it and then come and say it is OP because right now you all have QQ biased opinion.

 

 

 

In my opinion and experience (yes because i have played with it !) :

 

a.It is not more or less OP than the cruisers b4 it in the US line

b.HE spam is very boring

 

[Cirrus4000]

The funny thing about this thread is that everybody that say that the Cleveland is OP either :

 

-Dont have the Cleveland (80% of you)

-have the same stats in Cleveland and Aoba (like OP, 51% and 52 % win)

 

There is only one poster in this thread that has better stats in cleveland than the rest of his cruiser but he has played very little number of game with it and he got  44% in cleveland compared to 35 % in the rest of his cruisers....

 

FYI cleveland shells travel extremely slow with a very crappy arc making it very hard to citadel hit thing under 7 k range, because of the angle when it hit the broadside of another ship. You can adjust your aim for the slowness of the shell but you can't do anything about the trajectory. After tier 5 you can't just go in close range like you can in lower tier to compensate that fact because you will get recked very fast.

 

So play Cleveland with the current version of the game get significantly better stats with it and then come and say it is OP because right now you all have QQ biased opinion.

 

 

 

In my opinion and experience (yes because i have played with it !) :

 

a.It is not more or less OP than the cruisers b4 it in the US line

b.HE spam is very boring

 

 

Well, I'm not saying that it's OP (though it is a very good ship for it's tier). I did have it in CBT and it was very fun to play and very capable. I'm not pushing the US CA line at the moment as I prefer the IJN CAs. I do tend to keep my distance from them in my Aoba and as long as you don't get caught at close range you should be OK.

 

Fully agree with your point B. I used to fire a lot of HE but when it's CA vs CA, I find AP the best choice..

[Coenraad]

The funny thing about this thread is that everybody that say that the Cleveland is OP either :

 

-Dont have the Cleveland (80% of you)

-have the same stats in Cleveland and Aoba (like OP, 51% and 52 % win)

 

There is only one poster in this thread that has better stats in cleveland than the rest of his cruiser but he has played very little number of game with it and he got  44% in cleveland compared to 35 % in the rest of his cruisers....

 

FYI cleveland shells travel extremely slow with a very crappy arc making it very hard to citadel hit thing under 7 k range, because of the angle when it hit the broadside of another ship. You can adjust your aim for the slowness of the shell but you can't do anything about the trajectory. After tier 5 you can't just go in close range like you can in lower tier to compensate that fact because you will get recked very fast.

 

So play Cleveland with the current version of the game get significantly better stats with it and then come and say it is OP because right now you all have QQ biased opinion.

 

 

 

In my opinion and experience (yes because i have played with it !) :

 

a.It is not more or less OP than the cruisers b4 it in the US line

b.HE spam is very boring

 

Yup i have no Cleveland after cbt, in cbt however i did significantly better in the Cleveland,  and a slower shell with higher arc is not gonna make a ton of difference if you can aim half decent, also very few people dodge very actively. 

If you say Cleveland is not outclassing the Aoba by a good bit in most areas then you are either blind or a fanboy. 

The biggest issue with Clevelands is that they are super hard to citadel compared to all other cruisers around those levels. 

Phoenix, Omaha, Pensacola, New Orleans are all virtualy as easy to citadel as their IJN counterparts. So if you aim well you will kill them, even in a Furutaka. 

Yet as mentioned before the Cleveland has good armor and a small and split citadel also Very high dpm, fast turret rotation, fast turn speed. 

So no, just becourse most of us don't sail the Cleveland does not mean we don't have a point. 

They could easy drop pensacola and perhaps even new orleans and then with the old arcs an maybe a bit more hp and range it can compete throwing fire with yhe Mogami

 

[havaduck]

Since you brought my stats up, I will give you some additional information:

 

I played the Cleaveland way before the Aoba, mostly before the majority of the Furo-grind since it was such a drag, and I like to think I continously improved ever since, so the Aoba games were played at my best so far AND YET they just manage to scrape around even?

Whats telling you that?

Even if stats would matter so much with such a tiny and deformed basis of data: I have 46 % win with the Omaha (with ~900 avg xp) and 44 % win in the Furotaka (with ~570 avg xp), so I guess you would say nothing is wrong with Furutaka either.

 

But yes, I did play them both too, but almost completely stopped on Cleaveland.I mostly take out the Cleaveland when to many CVs are in the queue or my aoba got sunk _and_ I dont want to wait for the match to conclude.

 

They Cleavland by itself is OP, but not as critical as other issues in the game, but you sir COMPLETELY missed the point in this thread: Its about the japanes cruisers, and how they get completely screwed with a 360° vulnerability...... and yes since its on the same tier and even OP - the main offender is the Cleaveland, because if equally skilled the Cleaveland, AS I ELOBORATED ABOVE has _NO_ weaknesses on a Aoba.

 

Hell, the only reasons a Phoenix or a Omaha isnt as screwed against a Cleaveland ist because:

a. they are much more nimble than the IJN cruiser at T5 and T6

b. they are lower tier, so they pretty much expected to hold the line against a Cleaveland and not roflstomp him.

c. their rudder and engine dont break on a routinly basis with almost every hit.

 

 

The Pensecola on the other hand..... people say it isnt a improvement over the Cleaveland - at all, and while i am not owning one I can see why, too.

So now to even increase the pain ...

take away the AA to IJN levels,

give the Pensacola and even bigger citadell,

take away 1,5 " of turret Armor (and less overall armor and hp),

take away 40 % of its main battery (ok, increase rof),

give them a wider turning circle,

give them the special IJN Parrafin-Moduls,

and slap some torpedoes on it: Congrats you now have the Aoba.

 

 

And about hittingstuff in the Cleavland: with that rate of fire you halo-around at max range - not full salvo. And while the damage will suffer, you will hit stuff if you know what you doing at all, the insane rof coupled with the sheer number of guns will do the rest ...

 

 

But the best thing of all: You are pointing at players for not owning a Cleaveland .... YET in thread about the Cleavelands impact on IJN 8" Cruisers or 8" Cruisers in generell .... well I dont see ANY IJN or 8" CAs in your stats .... like, at all!

I am also missing a Super-, Alpha-, Beta- or Weekend-Tester-Tag under your name ... but I do see a Cleaveland - surprise.

 

 

And yes, about the preceding USN Cruisers: Yes the Omaha by itself, and surely against a Cleaveland or an Aoba is ok, but its completly out of balance against a Furutaka.

[tajj7]

Thing with the Cleve is it's a 1942 Cruiser against mainly late 1920s/early 1930s designed cruisers because of the 6 inch guns.

 

However, get rid of the HE spam ability, i.e. make HE less effective you heavily nerf the Cleveland, so fix that game problem you largely fix the Cleveland. 

 

That and the Pensicola probably needs a buff.

 

People are talking about a Cleveland on tier 8 but personally I don't see it, not with 6 inch guns seeing tier 10 and no torps.