How do you deal with head-on destroyers at 4 km?

[SaltySeal]

I've had this situation come up many times now and I cannot find a reliable counter. The situation is like this: I'm a cruiser or a battleship. A destroyer pops up at 3-5 km range straight ahead of me, heading straight towards me. Then no matter what I do I die. If I turn to either side the DD has a very easy torpedo target and kills me. If I head straight ahead I will get a narrow spread in the front. There is no time to maneuver to avoid 50-60 knot torpedoes at that range. In the time it takes for him to kill me I can shoot 1-3 salvoes with my front gun, usually hitting with most of the shots. Not enough damage to kill him before torp release, I just take away a bit of his health.

 

I really hope somebody has some advice, because every time this happens I am left dead and at DD with 50% - 80% health left is happily bobbing away from there.

[Seinta]

If you see a DD coming your way, try and turn away from it(be as smaller target as possible) while keeping your guns pointed at him. 

100% of the time the DD will turn to launch torps so wait for that moment and fire, you will either sink him or take a huge chunk of HP.

[Venatacia]

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

 

Seriously though, you can either turn and head in the opposite direction, I doubt the DD will get a spread of torps off if he is heading at you. Giving you time to turn and run where you then have the advantage of shooting him with your rear guns, he still wont be able to torp you. Hard in a BB but it can be done if you are quick enough to realise, split second decision and make it quick.

 

Or, it's head for him and play chicken basically, more easy to do in a CA. Hope you have torps too and get at least revenge after you die. Sometimes the DD will not have reloaded his torps in time, so on occasion you might be fine. In a BB your pretty much screwed, no amount of secondary guns will help you. Your main guns if they don't kill him in the first volley are now useless. Just hope you have enough health to take it. Always aim for the DD though, minimise the torps hitting you.

 

Lastly, think ahead, try not to put yourself in that position in the first place. Keep an eye on the map much as you can and take note of where DD gets spotted. I know it's not always easy to do and normally if your in a BB, your team will head off and leave you all alone, so really pay attention to where the DD are and never head through small gaps between islands, don't even go near.

[x00Starki]

Fire one turret on him... when he tries to dogde (and he therefore shows you more of his side), sink him...

And, as already said, drive away from him in a 30°-angle to his course. Adjust the angle so that you can use all your turrets...

[True_Winterfeld]

At the short ranges your are describing, I always turn into the DD with a cruiser. Peng, peng, bumm, bumm. DD is sunked or on the run. We are talking about cruisers Tier 4 and higher. If you have played DDs, you will know, they dont like that because of how torp dispersion works. In the last battle with my NY I also used this tactic. It worked and I was happy and got me 2 DDs in that battle with that maneuver. DDs want to hit you from the side.

 

Its much more tricky if you are spotted but cant see the DD. Then I always make a 90° turn and start zick zacking and playing with the speeds until the DD is spotted.

[DtXpwnz]

DD and their smokescreen...

[Barlion1]

All you have to do if you are in a BB is wait for the patch. They won't be able to do this as easily after that.

[Arakus]

I've had this situation come up many times now and I cannot find a reliable counter. The situation is like this: I'm a cruiser or a battleship. A destroyer pops up at 3-5 km range straight ahead of me, heading straight towards me. Then no matter what I do I die. If I turn to either side the DD has a very easy torpedo target and kills me. If I head straight ahead I will get a narrow spread in the front. There is no time to maneuver to avoid 50-60 knot torpedoes at that range. In the time it takes for him to kill me I can shoot 1-3 salvoes with my front gun, usually hitting with most of the shots. Not enough damage to kill him before torp release, I just take away a bit of his health.

 

I really hope somebody has some advice, because every time this happens I am left dead and at DD with 50% - 80% health left is happily bobbing away from there.

 

If you are in a CA the DD should be dead as you have fast firing guns which will sink him fast.

 

If you are in a BB you have a little problem as BBs are the natural fodder for DDs.

 

When the DD is behind you then drive straight away from him, use HE ammo and fire at him as long as he follow you.

You have a good chance to sink him maybe other ships will also fire at him, also as you drive away he will have problems to shot a good torp salvo at you.

With this tactic i have killed many DDs when driving a BB.

 

When he aproach from front it is much more tricky to avoid a deadly torp salvo.......

 

But always mark him as primary target for your secondary!

[ironhammer500]

I tend to point at them and then constantly slow down and speed up cause many DDs fire on the white line, so if you slow down the torps might miss. Load up HE wait for him to turn side on and unload, if you fire only 1 gun make him think u fired them all they might turn.

[Vavil]

I've had this situation come up many times now and I cannot find a reliable counter. The situation is like this: I'm a cruiser or a battleship. A destroyer pops up at 3-5 km range straight ahead of me, heading straight towards me. Then no matter what I do I die. If I turn to either side the DD has a very easy torpedo target and kills me. If I head straight ahead I will get a narrow spread in the front. There is no time to maneuver to avoid 50-60 knot torpedoes at that range. In the time it takes for him to kill me I can shoot 1-3 salvoes with my front gun, usually hitting with most of the shots. Not enough damage to kill him before torp release, I just take away a bit of his health.

 

I really hope somebody has some advice, because every time this happens I am left dead and at DD with 50% - 80% health left is happily bobbing away from there.

 

Just hope that it's me, because in all likelihood the DD will spontaneously explode and you can go on your merry way.

[Ast3lan]

Had that situation today on my Omaha where a minekaze and something else came straight at me. Simple work of shooting both avoid torps with speed control and not giving them room to maneuver.

 

Its a Situation that you need to use for your advantage by turning the situation around and keeping the DD under pressure.

[EsaTuunanen]

I've had this situation come up many times now and I cannot find a reliable counter. The situation is like this: I'm a cruiser or a battleship. A destroyer pops up at 3-5 km range straight ahead of me, heading straight towards me

Cruisers should definitely have the maneuverability to turn away for having more time to shoot DD making you also harder target.

And instead of turning full 180 degrees away you can run away in angle. (turn for example 160 degrees)

If he shows his side towards you that means torpedo launch and then you just turn more (making total turn say 200 degrees) and those torps will miss.

 

After closed beta ended I've been basically DD skipper and I just can't see how I could hit to that kind maneuvering target except by luck and chance with wide spread.

Against fast firing cruisers I wouldn't even try such exposed attacks and in case of BB if he turns away I still want to get reasonably close for having better chance at hitting which also gives him more time to shoot at me.

 

DDs want to hit you from the side.

But if that DD driver doesn't know/remember and you can force him pass you close enough those torps won't arm in time before hitting...

 

[max24dj]

Sorry but if a wild DD appears 3km in front of you and you try to turn to get away from him in a BB won't you just take the full spread into your side before you even manage to completely turn? If you keep going straight at him you have better chances. Most DDs have a really predictable behaviour when they drop torpedoes: they will come at you then turn to a side and release the torps and then turn away again, if you turn hard a couple of seconds after they broadside the torps will miss most of the times. Just make sure you hit them when they expose the side to release torps and if it's not enough keep hammering them when they run away.

[Admiral_Noif]

1. Look to map and avoid to get into close combat with DD. If you are able to see it in good distance. Turn your ship and sail away from it showing your back side.

2. If he is getting close to you. Try to shoot him on HE shells and showing your front/back side.

3. Ramming speed! 

 

or final stage:

4. Pray the god.

[ColonelPete]

If you see a DD at 4km, you already did something wrong.

Nonetheless, turning hard, reducing speed and increasig speed after 90 degree of turn can still help.

Should be no problem in a cruiser, in a BB you will probably take one torp.

[Cheaterhater]

If you're in a cruiser: Ram him. No, seriously. If you can't destroy him in time, then he's going to torp you as soon as you pass him. The solution is not passing him at all, which you do by ramming him. Cruisers have much more HP, and chances are you'll survive the ram while he won't. And he won't be able to fire his torps at you either. I once had to deal with the same situation while I was playing the Furutaka. I made a mistake and ended up moving towards an enemy DD in a very narrow strait. I knew he would torp me if I would move past him, so I turned towards him and cut him in half, while surviving myself (although with not so minor damage). This works both ways, btw: Yesterday I played the Isokaze, and again I was in a very narrow strait against and enemy Kuma, moving towards him and missing all my torps (and he was moving towards me as well). And I knew he would torp me if I went past him as he still had his torps left, so I rammed him. Of course, I sank during the process, but I inflicted 9000 damage and a flooding, which is better than doing nothing, I guess.

 

Even if you don't manage to ram him, you might still get close enough that his torps won't arm and thus won't damage you (which has been mentioned before).

 

However, you have to take what I just wrote with a grain of salt. If you really end up in such a situation that ramming suddenly becomes a viable option, you screwed up in one way or the other. The best way is to avoid such situations altogether (I know this is easier said than done, and well, sometimes ship happens, especially if you're playing a BB). If you still have a chance to turn away and dodge his torps or even destroy the DD, you should do it. If nothing else helps and you think your demise is certain, then make the best out of this situation and ram him. However, this is the last resort. Ramming is bad and should be avoided, mhkay?

[Figment]

One option: If your rudder is center, fake a turn: pretend to dodge to one side (the one most your turrets don't face), hit full reverse to change his lead and turn a bit more to get you in the best torp angle, hard turn to your other side (keep turning away), blast away while the DD is still turning torps in the proper direction.

 

A ram may be an option too, if he can't get to your side. Another option is to almost ram him and get so close along side the torps didn't activate yet, which is usualy only doable if you're in a narrow like the one at C in Fault Line. In which case you might as well just keep it in front.

 

But avoiding this situation is usualy better. Which is just about map awareness and maintaining distances and spot checks of corridors before you turn into m.

[N00b32]

4km ? Wish I had this cloaking values. So to sum up.

 

 

- You have no plane in the air

- You see him at 4km, prob that means you do not watch for spotted dds on the minimap and your situational awareness needs some improvement.

- Turn asap and with turn I mean 180° turn. 

 

and always the stupid question: replay available ?

[Interdiction]

Most DDs i encounter in this way die very quickly ....Sometimes you may have to eat a torp or two but the DD will be getting a few full on salvos up his jacksie for sure

 

 

 

[Tubit101]

A destroyer pops up at 3-5 km range straight ahead of me

 

A destroyer will not pop up anything shorter than ~5.5km in front of you, and that's only low tiers at that. Unless you're crossing a corner and the destroyer is waiting behind it. After tier 2, the concealment range decreases to 6km and mostly increases as the tiers increase. Also, I believe the best low tier concealment values are getting a nerf.

[Good_Cat]

To sum up what everyone has said run away as fast as you can, and hope and pray, while dodging torps he'll spam HE at you and you'll burn to death anyway.

 

At 4km in open water, yeah a but more attention but BB are usually busy dodging torps, being set on fire, dodging torps, prioritising your AA on torp bombers , checking your damage control to see when you can put out the fire, dodging torps, burning some more, getting spammed with HE from cruisers, dodging torps. (some where in there are multiple citadel hit cruiser broadsides )

 

Around Islands its just tough luck they appear from no where and there's usually nothing you can do its a losing battle, distance is your only survival tool, other paying attention to the map.

 

As said already load the HE dont waste your shots on a head on wait for the turn, then make sure each shot counts.

 

And always think torps - because there will always be a DD usually IJN somewhere watching you 7km away invisible to you who'll use the aim assist marker to spam a tight spead into your flank, aim assist was too cheaty for BB's regarless of accuracy RNG but not for a 90,000 potential damage torp spread with zero RNG.

 

AMX 13-90 with a autoloading BL10 is what a DD is.

 

[Arakus]

To sum up what everyone has said run away as fast as you can, and hope and pray, while dodging torps he'll spam HE at you and you'll burn to death anyway.

 

At 4km in open water, yeah a but more attention but BB are usually busy dodging torps, being set on fire, dodging torps, prioritising your AA on torp bombers , checking your damage control to see when you can put out the fire, dodging torps, burning some more, getting spammed with HE from cruisers, dodging torps. (some where in there are multiple citadel hit cruiser broadsides )

 

Around Islands its just tough luck they appear from no where and there's usually nothing you can do its a losing battle, distance is your only survival tool, other paying attention to the map.

 

As said already load the HE dont waste your shots on a head on wait for the turn, then make sure each shot counts.

 

And always think torps - because there will always be a DD usually IJN somewhere watching you 7km away invisible to you who'll use the aim assist marker to spam a tight spead into your flank, aim assist was too cheaty for BB's regarless of accuracy RNG but not for a 90,000 potential damage torp spread with zero RNG.

 

AMX 13-90 with a autoloading BL10 is what a DD is.

 

 

You have no clue......

[Battledragon]

it shouldn't be impossible to kill a DD with a a battleship from 4km, tricky, yes, but not impossible.  Unless you have litrally run into a narrow gap in which case he may well pop out, launch torpedos and be gone behind cover again before you can react (in which case why were you sailing into a narrow channel with no cruiser cover?).

I'd say don't reload, set HE for your next salvo but if AP is what you have loaded, you're going to have to use it first.  most battleships have a 30 second reload, and a DD 4km away is NOT going to give you that much time.  Target it for your secondaries (not going to help much if you're low tier, but woth a try anyway).  And don't fire first, wait for it to turn to launch THEN shoot, end on most of your salvo will miss
 

[69thBuLLeT]

What you're describing is one of the few torp tactics available to USN DDs and torp armed cruisers.

 

In fact I just did it to a Fuso in my Aoba. Worked like a charm.

 

Like the others have mentioned, you should spot it further away on open water and that's your real defense.

[Rabid_Turnip]

The problem with DDs is when they're torpedoing and firing and still staying invisible the whole time. In a BB it is quite literally impossible to do anything - you can't outrun them or their torps, you can't out-manoeuvre them or their torps, and you can't shoot what you can't see. You will die to something you never even saw.