Let's talk French battleships a bit...

[piritskenyer]

Alright, so here's the deal: I was scouring wikipedia at work, and I stumbled upon French BB's. I didn't really have the time to put in the hours required for anything resembling an internet-research (ie making reasoned assumptions based on logic, the old Mk I. eyeball and the available, often contradictory information), but what I gathered generally points towards the French using smaller calibre but high(er)-penetration main armament.

All that I'm about to write down is from wiki, so it may be inaccurate (although I'll try to get into sources as we go along), and so I invite all of you guys to comment and add to it if you know your stuff.

 

Right, let's start:

 

Tier III

 

Okay, we start off on a bad foot here: The French simply don't seem to have an all-big-gun BB armed with the right number of 12" guns. We either have a fairly RNG-dependent option, or one that would be probably overpowered at that level.

 

• The RNG-dependent: Danton-class 
  • Main armament: 2x2 x305mm (12") /45 Mle. 1906 guns
  • Secondary armament:
    • 6x2 x240mm/50 Mle. 1902 guns
    • 16x 75mm/65 Mle. 1908 guns
    • 10x 47mm Hotchkiss guns
  • Armour: 40-340mm
  • Speed: 19kts

Weapon layout

 

 

What we have here (in terms of the game), is basically a Mikasa that took crack cocaine. If we were to balance this ship somehow, she would need to have either good accuracy on her main guns and have the standard 2.5-3km secondary range, or give it the same poor accuracy that any other BB has, but give her a fair bit higher range on the 240mm's. 

Pretty hard nut to balance if you ask me, but for people who like the Mikasa it could actually be fun.

 

(It was proposed that her 240mm turrets be replaced with double 305mm turrets, bhut that never came to be. Could be a way to go to balance her? Take some liberties and change the 6x2x240 to 4x2x305mm, effectively getting to where the Kawachi is?) 

 

• Courbet-class
  • Main armament: 6x2x 305mm (12")/45 Mle 1906 guns
  • Secondary armament:
    • 22x 138mm /55 Mle 1910 guns
    • 4x 47mm Hotchkiss guns
  • Armour: 30-300mm
    • Belt: 270mm
  • Speed: 21kts

Weapon layout

 

 

Now what we have here is a ship that has the same broadside as the Ishizuchi. Not only that, but she also has a great big pack of secondary artillery, capable of setting anyone alight quite reliably by the sheer volume of fire alone. 

She can of course be balanced to have a reduced rate of fire, or slow turret turn times, but I don't think it'll matter that much if someone knows what he's doing in a BB. She could also be a Tier IV premium BB in case she doesn'T get chosen.

 

 

Tier IV

 

For this tier, I would suggest the Bretagne-class. I was also considering the Normandie-class, but I decided to go with the Bretagne for two reasons: 

• The Bretagne-class was actually realised, while the Normandie was not,
• And the Normandie-class would, in my opinion, have too much firepower for the tier: armed with 4x3 340mm guns she would have the most powerful broadside of any Tier 4 ship, while the 5x2 340mm guns of the Bretagne-class would sit just right at the tier.

 

Right then, the Bretagne-class: 

• Main armament: 5x2x 340mm (13,4")/45 Mle 1902 guns
• Secondary armament:
  • As built
    • 22x 138mm/55 Mle 1910 guns
    • 4x 47mm Hotchkiss guns
  • After 1935:
    • 14x 138mm/55 Mle 1910 guns
    • 8x 75mm/50 Mle 1922 guns (DP)
• Armour: 40-340mm
  • Belt: 270mm
• Speed: 20kts

Weapon layout

 

 

I think she would sit right well between the Wyoming (12x 12") and the Myogi (6x14") in terms of firepower, whilst in speed she'd be on the slow side (like pretty much everyone in that period). AA would only appear on the B hull, and even then it wouldn't be anything significant (I'm guessing some MG's would be present to complement the 75mm guns, but that's all).

 

 

Tier V

 

For this tier, I suggest either the Normandie-class 

or the Dunkerque-class of ships . The two are very different beasts. For one, one of them was built, the other was not. For two, one was planned as a true slugger-battleship, while the other was, throughout its existence, classed a great many different types.

 

• The Normandie-class was never built, while the Dunkerque-class was
• The Dunkerque-class sports theoretically inferior armament to the Normandie-class. In practice, however, it seems that the 330mm guns of the Dunkerque was the superior weapon with better ballistics and excellent AP performance.

 

The choice here basically comes down to speed (and AA) over number of guns. The Normandie class is very similar to the New York, while the Dunkerque is more like a feral Kongo in a baby-Nelson arrangement.

While both classes have smaller bore weapons than their intended counterparts (I know the Dunkerque was originally intended to whack the Deutchland and Scharnhorst classes), One would make up for it by simply having more guns than any others, the other by having very good AP capabilities, main firepower concentrated in the front (and in both cases possibly a higher-than-usual RoF and accuracy)

 

Normandie class (planned)

• Main armament: 3x4x 340mm/45 Mle 1912 guns
• Secondary armament: 
  • 24x 138mm/55 Mle 1910 guns
  • 6x 47mm Hotchkiss guns
• Armour: 40(?)-340mm
  • Belt: 300mm
• Speed: 21kts

 

I guess she could have some sort of upgrade to her AA at the expense of some secondary guns, something like the Bretagne-class got.

 

But that's for my next post, since now I have to go.

 

Kudos to Poster_2015 and Historynerd for their input

 

[Poster_2015]

Some work you put it here, so let me comment.

 

Tier 3 - the game is simply not made around pre-dreadnoughts. Mikasa is the proof. If you wanted to make Danton class work, you would have to treat 305mm guns as secondaries and give control over the 12x240mm guns. Then MAYBE it would be a buffed ST louis, but with even less range to balance? Who knows, i think its just not worth to try to balance pre-dreadnoughts. 

The Courbet is easily balanceable however. The low tier BB fights are rarely about huge broadsides, the accuracy is low, and HE dominates (no tier-based reduction on chance of fire). Lowering the rate of fire to equal 8 guns of other nations is all you really need to do here (maybe 36 sec reload to not set new records though). You have hp to balance it as well as range, spotting etc. Its slow, it has 305mm guns, it fits nicely into tier 3. It can also maybe start some "flavor" of french bbs with lower reload and higher salvos (like Richelieu could have a bit lower ROF too to balance 8 guns shooting forward etc). 

 

Tier 4, I assume that 340mm guns are actually rather crap in characteristics (given how early they were designed and that the French "upgraded" them to 330mm in lesser numbers later). I dont KNOW the gun so I cant really imagine if 12 such would be balanced vs 10x305 of Wyoming, but if they are crap then maybe. Still it would be a Nikolai on steroids when it came to setting up fires, even with bad shell characteristics (of course that could be balanced too, but if the short guns were "crap", then the side effect would be ability to shoot HE shells with much bigger load due to lower stress and speed of projectile).  However I would still go with the 10 gun ship, simply because of tier 5 problem.

Edit: I read about the gun a bit, and the 340mm guns in game would be mostly HE spammers - the shooting characteristics are REALLY bad for the game. 

 

Tier 5, Normandie, hands down.

 

Now the bigger problem for me is you included Dunquerke thats just a different age ship.

 

The Dunquerke looks a bit much like a Kongo on steroids to me. 31kn speed with that armor, and 8 forward shooting guns from 1931. With creative approach to realism it could of course work, but it would be a huge waste.

Dunquerke really can be even put at tier 8 as alternative to Amagi and NC - the year of design was similiar enough, and the 330mm guns were rather deceptive - they were one of best Naval guns made in respect to caliber, with ability to penetrate armored of other BBs belts at 20km+ ranges. The shells actually had better penetration values then the 400mm guns of its t8 counterparts, and better then Tirpitz.

 

To elaborate on the guns. The 340mm 1902 and 330mm 1931 guns are night and day, and the caliber doesnt really tell the whole story. The penetration difference is 2.5 times ! The 330mm gun also had faster shells then ANYTHING currently on WOWs at long range (lots of cruisers/destroyers had faster shells, but of much lower calibre - 150 or so mm, so they lost the speed way faster). Talk about sub 10 sec flight time at 22km. 

 

Still probably Lyon Class (designed) for t6 and Dunquerke for t7 would make more sense - although even at t7 I feel Dunquerke would have to be hamstrung a lot, and a unique ship opportunity would be lost. 

[piritskenyer]

Right. On we go.

 

Tier VI 

 

The very first time, this is where I figured the Dunkerque would be. Then I realised that the opposition on both ends would have overwhelming fire superiority with 12x 14" guns vs 8x 330mm, even if those guns are the very very good kind.

So I decided I'd go the other way, and propose yet another proposed but never built ship class: 

 

Lyon-class 

• Main armament: 4x4x 340mm/45 Mle 1912
• Secondary armament:
  • 24x 138mm/55 Mle 1910 guns
• AA armament:
  • unknown number of 40mm guns
• Armour: 40-340mm
  • Belt: 300mm
• Speed: 23kts

 

 

Now when it comes to upgrading the ship, since it wasn't built, we can take some liberties. Projecting how she would have looked completed in, say, 1918 (assuming she would have been layed down in 1915 as originally planned), we can then take the refit histories of similar warships and adjust accordingly. My idea would be primarily along the lines of taking off barbette-mounted secondaries and putting platform-mounted DP guns on the ship (similar to New Mexico and to some extent Warspite and IJN BB's). 

Of course since she's a paper ship, these are all pretty much fantasy theories and I completely understand if people don't like that.

I'm waiting for a replacement for this ship if someone has something to offer.

 

 

Tier VII

 

Dunkerque-class (as completed, I don't know of any major refits at this point, so maybe the stock config will be a somewhat dumbed-down version, although there is some (very minor) variation between the two sister ships)

• Main armament: 2x4x 330mm/50 Mle 1931 guns
• Secondary armament:
  • 3x4x + 2x2x 130mm/45 Mle 1931 guns (DP)
• AA artillery:
  • 3x4x + 2x2x 130mm/45 Mle 1931 guns (DP)
  • 5(4)x2x 37mm/50 Mle 1933 guns
  • 2x4x 13.2mm/76 Hotchkiss MG's
• Armour: 30-360mm
  • Belt: 283mm (from Strassbourg - aka top hull)
• Speed: 30-31kts

 

We can see that she's indeed a very capable ship, with some serious speed and firepower.

 

Tier VIII

 

Richelieu (single ship)

 

Yeah, we're here, it's Dunkerque's big brother. The layout is virtually the same only a few sizes bigger.

The C hull has been re-added in the original form of the idea, meaning Jean Bart's final form. The number of 20mm Oerlikon guns was retained at 50 rather than 20 on the C hull, although that can be changed down.

 

• Main armament: 2x4x 380mm (14.96")/45 Mle 1935
• Secondary armament:
  • As completed (A hull):
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 6x2x 100mm/45 Mle 1933 (DP)
  • 1943 (US) refit (B hull):
    • unchanged
  • 1955 (domestic) refit (Jean Bart) (C hull):
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/55 Mle 1945 (DP)
• AA armament:
  • As completed (A hull):
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 6x2x 100mm/45 Mle 1933 (DP)
    • 8x2x 37mm Mle 1933
    • 28x 13.2mm Hotchkiss Mle 1929 MG's in different mountings (5x4, 2x2, 4x1)
  • 1943 (US) refit (B hull): 
    • DP unchanged
    • 14x4x 40mm/60 Bofors gun
    • 50x 20mm Oerlikon guns
  • 1955 (domestic) refit (Jean Bart) (C hull):
    • ​3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/55 Mle 1945 (DP)
    • 14x2x 57mm/60 Bofors
    • 50x 20mm Oerlikon
• Armour: 40-430mm
  • Belt: 330mm
• Speed: 30kts

 

 

 

Jean Bart as she was completed is in many ways inferior to Richelieu, She may make a good prem

 

Jean Bart 

 

• Main armament: 2x4x 380mm (14.96")/45 Mle 1935
• Secondary armament:
  • As completed (A hull):
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 5x2x 90mm/50 Mle 1926 (DP)
• AA armament:
  • As completed (A hull):
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 5x2x 90mm/50 Mle 1926 (DP)
    • 8x 40mm Bofors gun
    • 20x 20mm Oerlikon
• Armour: 40-430mm
  • Belt: 330mm
• Speed: 32kts

 

RoF, range and dispersion-wise I think she'd be pretty much the same as Richelieu, but her AA and secondary armament is weaker.

 

Tier IX
 

Alsace-class (proposed)

 

She is basically a project that aimed at taking the Richelieu class and stick on one more turret (aft) to give her a total of 12x 380mm guns.

 

• Main armament: 3x4x 380mm/45 Mle 1933 guns
• Secondary armament
  • A hull:
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/45 Mle 1933 (DP)
  • B hull:
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/55 Mle 1945 (DP)
• AA armament:
  • A hull:
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/45 Mle 1933 (DP)
    • 16x2x 37mm 
    • 20x2x 13.2mm Hotchkiss
  • B hull:
    • 3x3x 152mm/55 Mle 1930 (DP)
    • 12x2x 100mm/55 Mle 1945 (DP)
    • 16x2x 57mm/60 Bofors gun
    • 20-40x Oerlikon cannon
• Armour: 47-410mm
  • Belt: 330mm
• Speed: 31kts

Second from the bottom

 

I'll need to come up with a research path (hull A and B) for this ship. As always, help is welcome.

 

Tier X

 

We are entering speculation area here. We could be looking at total paper designs we ourselves make out of existing parts, modifications of existing designs, or finishing half-a$s'd proposals.

 

Proposal 1: Super-Alsace

Take the Alsace plan, lengthen, and add one more turret fore or aft (the three-turret-forward arrangement could look funky), And basically we have a ship that has the most guns of any broadside in the game with 16x 15" guns (the max number of guns I know of is 15 on the Mogami), basically burying the target in shells.

Would probably provide a very high DPM at 2rpm.

 

I'll just call this the 450mm battleship. Now seeing how the gun is marked 450mm/45 Mle 1920, I'd wager she'd perform relatively poorly compared to things like British 18" and Japanese 460mm guns, but ingame that doesn'T have to be the case, since the Yamato's 460 is also a 45-calibre weapon. Assuming they used good powder on a similar shell, similar velocities could be expected.

The designation of the weapon would also mean (this is a shot in the dark) that the ship it is to be mounted on would resemble the old-slow-heavy kind of ships, rather than the fast BB's of high tiers. I'm basing that solely on the designation of the guns, and the way BB's were built prior to the '30s.

Should she be slow, she'd have to be overly heavily armoured and very maneuvrable to stand a chance at dealing good damage.

 

There is always the possibility however of simply upgrading the existing designs by using guns they didn'T have but could be concieved as being fitted to them. This would be the Alsace but instead of being fitted with 3x4x 15" guns, she'd be fitted with 3x3x 450mm guns. That would in effect make her on par with the Yamato, although I suspect she'd be smaller, a bit faster and a bit nimbler.

 

Thanks to Poster_2015, Historynerd and Getzamatic

 

Cheers

 

[piritskenyer]

Some work you put it here, so let me comment.

 

Tier 3 - the game is simply not made around pre-dreadnoughts. Mikasa is the proof. If you wanted to make Danton class work, you would have to treat 305mm guns as secondaries and give control over the 12x240mm guns. Then MAYBE it would be a buffed ST louis, but with even less range to balance? Who knows, i think its just not worth to try to balance pre-dreadnoughts. 

The Courbet is easily balanceable however. The low tier BB fights are rarely about huge broadsides, the accuracy is low, and HE dominates (no tier-based reduction on chance of fire). Lowering the rate of fire to equal 8 guns of other nations is all you really need to do here (maybe 36 sec reload to not set new records though). You have hp to balance it as well as range, spotting etc. Its slow, it has 305mm guns, it fits nicely into tier 3. It can also maybe start some "flavor" of french bbs with lower reload and higher salvos (like Richelieu could have a bit lower ROF too to balance 8 guns shooting forward etc). 

 

Tier 4, I assume that 340mm guns are actually rather crap in characteristics (given how early they were designed and that the French "upgraded" them to 330mm in lesser numbers later). I dont KNOW the gun so I cant really imagine if 12 such would be balanced vs 10x305 of Wyoming, but if they are crap then maybe. Still it would be a Nikolai on steroids when it came to setting up fires, even with bad shell characteristics (of course that could be balanced too, but if the short guns were "crap", then the side effect would be ability to shoot HE shells with much bigger load due to lower stress and speed of projectile).  However I would still go with the 10 gun ship, simply because of tier 5 problem.

Edit: I read about the gun a bit, and the 340mm guns in game would be mostly HE spammers - the shooting characteristics are REALLY bad for the game. 

 

Tier 5, Normandie, hands down.

 

Now the bigger problem for me is you included Dunquerke thats just a different age ship.

 

The Dunquerke looks a bit much like a Kongo on steroids to me. 31kn speed with that armor, and 8 forward shooting guns from 1931. With creative approach to realism it could of course work, but it would be a huge waste.

Dunquerke really can be even put at tier 8 as alternative to Amagi and NC - the year of design was similiar enough, and the 330mm guns were rather deceptive - they were one of best Naval guns made in respect to caliber, with ability to penetrate armored of other BBs belts at 20km+ ranges. The shells actually had better penetration values then the 400mm guns of its t8 counterparts, and better then Tirpitz.

 

To elaborate on the guns. The 340mm 1902 and 330mm 1931 guns are night and day, and the caliber doesnt really tell the whole story. The penetration difference is 2.5 times ! The 330mm gun also had faster shells then ANYTHING currently on WOWs at long range (lots of cruisers/destroyers had faster shells, but of much lower calibre - 150 or so mm, so they lost the speed way faster). Talk about sub 10 sec flight time at 22km. 

 

Still probably Lyon Class (designed) for t6 and Dunquerke for t7 would make more sense - although even at t7 I feel Dunquerke would have to be hamstrung a lot, and a unique ship opportunity would be lost. 

 

Agree on tier 3. 

 

On tier 4, it's the Bretagne that has 10 guns to the Wyoming's 12. Just a comment.

I don't think the 340mm guns were that terrible. navweaps.com gives them rather okay characteristics, but they seem to "run out of steam" for T5 (just as 12" guns would).

 

I think the Dunkerque could also hack it in T6 if well balanced. After all, she's fast, seems reasonably nimble, and doesn'T need to show her sides in order to use her full firepower. If navweaps.com are correct then the 330mm guns are also very high-pen weapons that can cause tremendous damage. Also on T6 I think she could be balanced with a higher-than-average RoF, but maybe the fact that she can fire all her guns while showing the smallest cross-section is balancing enough. 

If push comes to shove, maybe Dunkerque could even be put at T7 with some fantasy refit to her AA. Like you said: those 330mm guns are tremendous.

[Poster_2015]

I really dont know why you downplay the 330mm guns for high tiers. Its like saying Tirpitz cant compete because it has lower caliber guns. The important part about guns is trajectory, penetration, RoF. Caliber sure impacts the damage, but 330mm would still do 9500-10000 damage citadels - so considering you would score more hits and with better penetration then in NC (13k citadels), it definitely wouldnt be a problem. And that doesnt even take into account possible buff to ROF. With a 22 sec reload or so, that ship would be a tremendous contender in t8 assuming some things would be fixed (for example the half turret design - so one hit wouldnt knock WHOLE 4 gun turret but only half - the french turrets had armored bulkhead splitting their turrets in half specifically for this - and that was combat tested and worked). 

 

You want to "maybe push" it to T7. Mind it, its a 1930 BB, facing 1920s constructions. Lets compare it to Colorado. it has better guns , albeit with less alpha damage (I assume it would be balanced by higher rof). Modern armor scheme + all the armament firing forward means you have tremendous advantage. Additionally its on a ship with decent AA and 31kn speed. As for armor I guess a lot of it also depends on whether its dunquerke or strasbourg version. If the former, i guess it could somehow fit into t7, if latter that ship either belongs in t8, or requires some big time artificial nerfs.

 

 

In general I feel like its better to play ships to their strengths, rather then play with hp and such to nerf those ships to lower tiers, then give us completely paper designs (anything past Alsace would be that).

 

So from top to bottom

 

X - Alsace. The 12x 380 mm guns with very similiar penetration to Montana, better shell trajectory and lower damage (11600 Tirp like) is easily balanceable. The armor is on level of Iowa, so a bit low for T10, but if it gets actual 31kn speed, coupled with best turning capabilities, and Tirpitz rate ROF, it definitely could work fine there. The thing is, the ROF on those guns was actually not that great - rather lower then 406mm US guns, so that would be against historical data. Still Id rather have that than a completely bogus ship.

 

XI - Richelieu. Given how both Izumo and Iowa can rarely use more then 2 turrets, the 8 gun setup wouldnt be bad in the slightiest. Its fast, its decently armored (on par with its peers), maybe the guns wouldnt even have to shoot that fast.

 

VIII - Dunquerke - reasons above

 

VII - no idea -

 

VI -  Lyon class looks nice with 16x340 mm gun, but it would have to get some "fantasy" gun upgrade

 

 

[piritskenyer]

I really dont know why you downplay the 330mm guns for high tiers. Its like saying Tirpitz cant compete because it has lower caliber guns. The important part about guns is trajectory, penetration, RoF. Caliber sure impacts the damage, but 330mm would still do 9500-10000 damage citadels - so considering you would score more hits and with better penetration then in NC (13k citadels), it definitely wouldnt be a problem. And that doesnt even take into account possible buff to ROF. With a 22 sec reload or so, that ship would be a tremendous contender in t8 assuming some things would be fixed (for example the half turret design - so one hit wouldnt knock WHOLE 4 gun turret but only half - the french turrets had armored bulkhead splitting their turrets in half specifically for this - and that was combat tested and worked). 

 

You want to "maybe push" it to T7. Mind it, its a 1930 BB, facing 1920s constructions. Lets compare it to Colorado. it has better guns , albeit with less alpha damage (I assume it would be balanced by higher rof). Modern armor scheme + all the armament firing forward means you have tremendous advantage. Additionally its on a ship with decent AA and 31kn speed. As for armor I guess a lot of it also depends on whether its dunquerke or strasbourg version. If the former, i guess it could somehow fit into t7, if latter that ship either belongs in t8, or requires some big time artificial nerfs.

 

 

In general I feel like its better to play ships to their strengths, rather then play with hp and such to nerf those ships to lower tiers, then give us completely paper designs (anything past Alsace would be that).

 

So from top to bottom

 

X - Alsace. The 12x 380 mm guns with very similiar penetration to Montana, better shell trajectory and lower damage (11600 Tirp like) is easily balanceable. The armor is on level of Iowa, so a bit low for T10, but if it gets actual 31kn speed, coupled with best turning capabilities, and Tirpitz rate ROF, it definitely could work fine there. The thing is, the ROF on those guns was actually not that great - rather lower then 406mm US guns, so that would be against historical data. Still Id rather have that than a completely bogus ship.

 

XI - Richelieu. Given how both Izumo and Iowa can rarely use more then 2 turrets, the 8 gun setup wouldnt be bad in the slightiest. Its fast, its decently armored (on par with its peers), maybe the guns wouldnt even have to shoot that fast.

 

VIII - Dunquerke - reasons above

 

VII - no idea -

 

VI -  Lyon class looks nice with 16x340 mm gun, but it would have to get some "fantasy" gun upgrade

 

 

 

Yes, after some thought I'm inclined to agree. The problem here is idk if the game allows for the turrets to be split in half...

 

Adjusted tech tree then, based on your recommendations:

 

T3 - Courbet-class (6(5)x2x 305mm)

 

T4 - Bretagne class (5x2x 340mm)

 

T5 - Normandie-class (3x4x (3x2x2x) 340mm)

 

T6 - Lyon-class (4x4x (4x2x2x) 340mm) (maybe could get an upgrade of double 330mm turrets or upgraded stats for the 340mm guns)

 

T7 - Dunkerque-class (2x4x (2x2x2x) 330mm) (I think no matter how good those guns and the ship was, she belongs to T7 tops for the simple reason that you can't give it a realistically high enough RoF to make up for the smaller damage/shot one tier higher. All BB's at T7 are comparatively rubbish, so why not have a good ship there? Everyone always cries about the Colorado and the Nagato is not much more highly regarded either. The fact that she has actually useful armour at T7? What of it? Is T7 supposed to be some kind of grinder where BB's go to die?)

 

T8 - Richelieu (single ship) (2x4x (2x2x2x) 380mm, balanced with lower RoF (early problems with the ammunition hoists), lower range (pre- and early-war FCS and RPC) and weaker top AA (esp in the ranged department))

 

T9 - Jean Bart (single ship) (2x4x (2x2x2x) 380mm, balanced with higher RoF (fixed and improved ammunition hoists), higher range (post-war FCS and RPC, blind-fire capability) and stronger top AA (higher range and DPM))

 

T10 - Alsace-class (3x4x (3x2x2x) 380mm)

 

What do you think of this setup?

 

EDIT: I'll adjust my two posts accordingly

[Poster_2015]

I dont think Jean Bart split with Richelieu will work. Those are essentially same ships, with JB getting better final AA compliment. Jean Bart refit is fine as a final hull for a t9 stock Richelieu. I really think Dunquerke could be simply t8, but  that leaves a hole at t7. Or it could be t7 (again , 30kn ship with better armor then colorado, better guns, and able to stay front to enemy doesnt seem like a easy-to-balance scenario), with a hole for a paper ship at t8. 

 

Either way, think about playing them - t8 and t9 will play exactly the same, with only possibility being t8 having reduced ROF? Just doesnt feel right. 

[piritskenyer]

We could go the way of the Richelieu being present as a class at T9, but then we have a hole somewhere in that area. Either at T7 if we move Dunkerque up or at T8 if we don't. I agree that the situation with Richelieu and JB is not ideal, but I have no better idea. 

 

As for the Dunkerque at T7, as I previously said, I think it would be nice to have an actually decent ship there. We can'T buff the rate of fire in such a way that it wouldn't be ridiculous: The Amagi's DPM is 252k, the NC's is 235,8k, the Torpitz's is 213.4k. To achieve a low DPM of 220k, the Dunkerque should fire 2,75 rounds a minute, in other words fire every 22 seconds. This is even worse if we take 9.5k dmg/shot, In which case RoF would be 2,89 r/m or a reload of 20.75 seconds, which is almost cruiser levels of reloading. 

At tier 7 however she would have to face off against the Nagato (191.5k DPM) and the Colorado (195.2k DPM). To achieve a DPM of 184k (lower than the other two) she would have to have a dmg/shot of 10k and a RoF of 2.3. To have a DPM of 192k, she'd need 2.4 r/m, and 2.5 r/m would just give her 200k clean.

I'd say give her a RoF of 2.3 (.3 more than historically described, btw!) and she'd be right at home at T7.

I'm not downplaying the 330mm guns, is just that there's a limit to how powerful a gun's single shot can be in a calibre range and I don't want to go overboard. The penetration would still easily be in the high enough ranges to hurt T9's. I hope you understand my concern here.

 

[RamirezKurita]

The Dunkerques would make nice T7s, having significantly higher speeds than other T7s but sacrificing firepower. Most predictions also put the German Scharnhorsts at T7, so it makes sense for them to be paired off against each other. The main guns had nice penetration and flat arcs, but the smaller shell sizes compared to other T7s would result in relatively poor damage (getting citadels isn't everything if the guns don't have enough maximum damage to make good use of them), plus the guns suffered from high dispersion and had poor rates of fire.  It has the advantages of a newer design, but is significantly smaller than other battleships of the period (similar to the NC vs Amagi matchup, one is small but mordern, the other is outdated but much larger). I could see the ships still functioning as excellent cruiser hunters due to their speed with enough penetration to support against enemy battleships though (they would probably struggle to take down battleships themselves due to low DPM), they just won't be proper front-line battleships.

 

I don't think the Richeleius will work at anything higher than T8, they were still ultimately treaty battleships in a similar vein to the North Carolinas and they don't even have the incredibly efficient ammunition hoists of the Bismarcks. They also don't really belong with the pre-treaty battleships at T7 either, so T8 is really the only option for them. They generally compare well against the Bismarcks by most metrics, being better in some regards but worse in others. The differences between the Jean Bart and the Richeleiu would be easy enough to implement as hull upgrades. The smaller Alsace designs (such as the 3x3 380mm gun designs) would also work at T8, as their capabilities weren't really any better than their predecessors.

 

The Alsaces would be a nice ship at T9, substituting high caliber guns for having more guns than the other T9s with her 3x4 turrets in one of the designs. I'd imagine they would probably also have improved ammunition hoists, giving them a solid rate of fire. This is assuming they don't just take the boring route and use the 3x3 406mm gun design, which would basically just be another Iowa.

 

No idea what would fit at T10, unless there an Alsace successor that I'm not aware of that has something like 3x4 406mm guns or something similar. Even the biggest of the Alsace designs I am aware of are still no larger or more powerful than the existing T9s and nowhere near enough to match up to the T10s.

 

The earlier tiers have so many WWI designs that they are pretty trivial to fill out, with the unfinished Normandies and Lyons fitting well into the fifth and sixth tiers with their large batteries of 340mm guns.

 

Most of the designs will need some kind of AA refit though for the later hull upgrades, although most of the refits will have to be fictional as France never really did much refitting during WWII for obvious reasons (the ones that did get refitted historically were refitted in other countries).

[Poster_2015]

Well the math you post assumes few things, so let me counter it with a bit of mine.

 

1) The damage should be at least 9.5/shot - thats simply based on caliber. Given however how the higher speed/penetration AP bullets are given more damage in the game , you could give it easily the buff US super heavies get compared to other 400mm shells - as in 10%. So anything between 9.5-10.4 is well within bounds of the game , and the damage wont be a huge outlier. 

 

2) at T8, Dunquerke has significant advantages. It has better armor then Amagi with very very good angles of fire (sure of a blind spot behind but the angles were good nonetheless), and its faster then NC. You cant simply put the maximum dps numbers, because NC 90% of the time uses just 2 turrets. Amagi is more likely to use all the guns, but it suffers from non stellar penetration for its tier (Nagato guns are getting a bit outdated). Furthermore angling to use all guns in Amagi will make you a lot more vulnerable.  Therefore I think simply comparing it to NC with 6 guns is fair - because NC itself using 6 guns is more then a match for Amagi. 6 guns in NC = 157200 dpm. Dunquerke guns have better shooting characteristics, so they will score more penetrations, but lets assume the same ratio. That means at 9.5dmg/shot and 2.0  ROF the damage sits just below that of NC. at 10.4 its above. Now sure, the NC CAN bring the rear turret into play (not usually), but if you balance the ROF and dispersion around 2.3 shot/min, and dispersion around same as US (the US guns were more accurate , but mind it- they are already artificially dumbed down in the game) you can already see it pulling ahead. 

 

Overall id go rather towards the higher end of the spectrum - with 2.3-.2.4 ROF, 10.4 dmg/shot, and balance it out with poor turret rotation (it was poor), and maybe slightly higher dispersion then US BBs (again, mind that WG seems to put dispersion as a global value for nation, so it would mean ALL french bbs would be inaccurate). 

 

Or if you wanna compare it to another ship, it would be a tirpitz with same ROF and 10% lower dpm, but with all turrets in the nose (which in this game is a huge advantage). 

 

This ship btw would have more firepower then Izumo in most of the cases when you cant use the derp turret. 

[Historynerd]

To be honest, the 340 mm guns don't seem too bad... apart from the IRL poor fire control systems of the French ships until after World War I and their low maximum elevation which made for rather low range, they seem to be rather okay weapons.

 

In any case, I'd like to observe that it's not correct to put the highest absolute values for the armor for a ship, (which turn out to be the plates of the turret faces, much stronger than the actual protection given by the citadels).

Here are the belt armor values of the ships:

Courbet: 270 mm

Bretagne: same

Normandie: 300 mm

Lyon: same

Dunkerque: 283 mm (value of Strasbourg)

Richelieu: 330 mm

Alsace: same

[piritskenyer]

Small update: I contacted the guy who runs navweaps.com and asked him for some more penetration figures esp on the 305 and 340mm guns. 

 

cheers

[HariSeldon]

So we either make a hole in tier 7 or make a hole in 9...or lack a 10.

 

I hope wg dont screw the tree with something own paper made.

[piritskenyer]

Don'T have an answer formed on the subject of tiering and ships yet (I want the Dunkerque in T7 for clubbing only, not a valid reason), but in the meantime, here're some penetration tables (yes, the 330mm/50 is wrongly marked /45)

http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_France.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_index.htm (legend and some other tables)

 

[piritskenyer]

So we either make a hole in tier 7 or make a hole in 9...or lack a 10.

 

I hope wg dont screw the tree with something own paper made.

 

There are actually some theoretical options from what I managed to gather, mainly along the lines of 16"-armed Alsace proposals that never left the ground and that would not really be any stronger than an Iowa...

 

EDIT: Can a mod merge this and my previous post? I derped a little...

[_TheHoneyBadger_]

So... Tier 10 Would look exactly like the Yamato^^.

[piritskenyer]

So... Tier 10 Would look exactly like the Yamato^^.

 

Not really. The Yamato carries 18.1" guns, and 9 of those. The Monatana carries 12 16" guns. If we were to give the Alsace a 16" for every 15" she was to carry, we'd only get to the Montana's level of 12 16" guns. Realistically though, you could only fit 3 guns in a turret, so you'd get an Iowa.

 

The idea I had (I know, no completely fantasy ships, but hear me out) was to have an Alsace with a 4th quad turret for a total of 16 15" (14.96") guns. Imagine that?

[Historynerd]

To be honest, the 340 mm guns don't seem too bad... apart from the IRL poor fire control systems of the French ships until after World War I and their low maximum elevation which made for rather low range, they seem to be rather okay weapons.

 

In any case, I'd like to observe that it's not correct to put the highest absolute values for the armor for a ship, (which turn out to be the plates of the turret faces, much stronger than the actual protection given by the citadels).

Here are the belt armor values of the ships:

Courbet: 270 mm

Bretagne: same

Normandie: 300 mm

Lyon: same

Dunkerque: 283 mm (value of Strasbourg)

Richelieu: 330 mm

Alsace: same

 

 

 

Maybe you missed my post, so I'm referencing it again.

[piritskenyer]

Historynerd, on 08 January 2016 - 11:08 AM, said:

To be honest, the 340 mm guns don't seem too bad... apart from the IRL poor fire control systems of the French ships until after World War I and their low maximum elevation which made for rather low range, they seem to be rather okay weapons.

 

In any case, I'd like to observe that it's not correct to put the highest absolute values for the armor for a ship, (which turn out to be the plates of the turret faces, much stronger than the actual protection given by the citadels).

Here are the belt armor values of the ships:

Courbet: 270 mm

Bretagne: same

Normandie: 300 mm

Lyon: same

Dunkerque: 283 mm (value of Strasbourg)

Richelieu: 330 mm

Alsace: same

 

 

Maybe you missed my post, so I'm referencing it again.

 

Yes, sorry and thanks.

 

I didn't miss the post, I just got caught up in some work stuff so it slipped my mind. Also I was trying to research the firepower in my little spare time. Det'd answer when I get home.

 

EDIT:

 

Yes, I did realise that it probably wasn't their belt armour, I was just listing general stats as at that point I wasn'T about to go deeper into the details, such as armour schemes. 

How do you propose we go about discussing the subject of armour? Comparison? Comparison against the guns they would have to face? All I can say at this point is that the Dunkerque and Richelieu would be pretty tough nuts to crack given their ability to just point their nose towards their opponent and lay down their total main firepower.

 

PS: Sorry, it's not a very detailed answer or anything, but my brain is pretty much fried by now.

[Historynerd]

Well, I believe that exchanging the highest absolute value of armor for the belt armour thickness isn't exactly going that much deep into details. Besides, I also believe that it's this value that counts the most when putting together a list of candidates for each Tier, since it doesn't matter that much what a ship can bounce off its turret faces, while it's much more important what its belt armor can or can't do; therefore, the second value is more representative than the first, I think.

 

Of course, there are other factors, i's only a general idea, yet I think it's important to see wheter a ship can work at that Tier or not, or to give an idea how to balance it out against its rivals at the same Tier. Giving somewhat misleading armor values could lead to mistakes, in my opinion.

[Tyrendian89]

 

The idea I had (I know, no completely fantasy ships, but hear me out) was to have an Alsace with a 4th quad turret for a total of 16 15" (14.96") guns. Imagine that?

 

Imagining that... imagining... the cruiser in me starts to shake violently... the Destroyer quickly follows suit...

GAH that's just toooooooo many shells to see coming at you in any kind of ship! That's more than from a 155Mogami, and at serious Battleship caliber too. I love the idea, even if I doubt it'll happen.

[piritskenyer]

Well, I believe that exchanging the highest absolute value of armor for the belt armour thickness isn't exactly going that much deep into details. Besides, I also believe that it's this value that counts the most when putting together a list of candidates for each Tier, since it doesn't matter that much what a ship can bounce off its turret faces, while it's much more important what its belt armor can or can't do; therefore, the second value is more representative than the first, I think.

 

Of course, there are other factors, i's only a general idea, yet I think it's important to see wheter a ship can work at that Tier or not, or to give an idea how to balance it out against its rivals at the same Tier. Giving somewhat misleading armor values could lead to mistakes, in my opinion.

 

Yes, I know that max-min values are not representative, neither was I suggesting we use the max value instead of the belt, I was just trying to do a quick datadump to have some sort of baseline. It still took me 6 hours. Now what we'd really need is someone who can make some sort of rudimentary model or schematic for the armour layout so we can examine can's and can't's. For now all we can do is numbercrunching, which isn't bad in and of itself, but as Poster_2015 pointed out it may not present the whole story.

 

I'll go and update my posts with belt thicknesses (based on your post).

 

 

Imagining that... imagining... the cruiser in me starts to shake violently... the Destroyer quickly follows suit...

GAH that's just toooooooo many shells to see coming at you in any kind of ship! That's more than from a 155Mogami, and at serious Battleship caliber too. I love the idea, even if I doubt it'll happen.

 

Yeah, it'd pose some problems for sure, but for lack of better (or in any way unique) alternative, this is what I could come up with.

Let's do a bit of numbercrunching though.

Yamato sustained DPM: 266.4k (14.8k x2 x9)

Montana sustained DPM: 324k (13.5k x2 x12)

Average: 295.2k

Now if we go off the avg sustained dpm of TX, let's suppose our 16-gun-Alsace gets 2 r/m

296.2k / (2x16) = 9225 dmg/shot. Hell naw. 

 

Since she'd supposed to be a DPM BB, let's suppose she gets 11.8k damage/ shot (Warspite: 11400, Tirpitz: 11600). 

11.8k x2 x16 = 377.6k

Now that's more like it. 

 

Alternatively if we were to put Alsace upat T10, in order to put out the DPM of the Montana on the same gun characteristics, she'd need to fire 2.3 rounds a minute (which would stack up to 325k and change dpm).

[Tyrendian89]

 

Yeah, it'd pose some problems for sure, but for lack of better (or in any way unique) alternative, this is what I could come up with.

Let's do a bit of numbercrunching though.

Yamato sustained DPM: 266.4k (14.8k x2 x9)

Montana sustained DPM: 324k (13.5k x2 x12)

Average: 295.2k

Now if we go off the avg sustained dpm of TX, let's suppose our 16-gun-Alsace gets 2 r/m

296.2k / (2x16) = 9225 dmg/shot. Hell naw. 

 

Since she'd supposed to be a DPM BB, let's suppose she gets 11.8k damage/ shot (Warspite: 11400, Tirpitz: 11600). 

11.8k x2 x16 = 377.6k

Now that's more like it. 

 

Alternatively if we were to put Alsace upat T10, in order to put out the DPM of the Montana on the same gun characteristics, she'd need to fire 2.3 rounds a minute (which would stack up to 325k and change dpm).

 

the latter might work out, seeing as Tirpitz is doing just fine in a gun duel against her peers with the higher RoF she has combined with good "soft" shell characteristics... they don't feel significantly less punchy than the 16"ers of their competitors to me. How well that Alsace variant could compete with a well-driven Yamato would probably depend quite a bit on how good or bad her HE shells would be, since angling makes the Yamato largely immune to Monty AP and by extension Alsace AP as well - and exploiting that one mistake (i.e. exposing the broadside) by the Yamato depends much more on straight Alpha damage than RoF.

For the 16 gun Alsace to be balanced, I think she'd need some less-than-optimal shell or gun characteristics - otherwise her pure Alpha outclasses even the Montana by a big chunk, and she'd also be monstrously powerful against DDs and CAs just because they'd have nowhere safe to be within that death net of shells. Maybe give her a bit less RoF, since there'd be more guns to load per turret... 1.8 RPM would work out to ~340k DPM, which seems more manageable considering the other advantages she'd have...

[Historynerd]

 

Yes, I know that max-min values are not representative, neither was I suggesting we use the max value instead of the belt, I was just trying to do a quick datadump to have some sort of baseline. It still took me 6 hours. Now what we'd really need is someone who can make some sort of rudimentary model or schematic for the armour layout so we can examine can's and can't's. For now all we can do is numbercrunching, which isn't bad in and of itself, but as Poster_2015 pointed out it may not present the whole story.

 

I'll go and update my posts with belt thicknesses (based on your post).

 

Alright.

 

Now that I think of it, the use of two hulls with different values of belt armor for Dunkerque will likely be a first... if it hasn't happened yet on a ship already in the game and I missed it.

[piritskenyer]

 

the latter might work out, seeing as Tirpitz is doing just fine in a gun duel against her peers with the higher RoF she has combined with good "soft" shell characteristics... they don't feel significantly less punchy than the 16"ers of their competitors to me. How well that Alsace variant could compete with a well-driven Yamato would probably depend quite a bit on how good or bad her HE shells would be, since angling makes the Yamato largely immune to Monty AP and by extension Alsace AP as well - and exploiting that one mistake (i.e. exposing the broadside) by the Yamato depends much more on straight Alpha damage than RoF.

For the 16 gun Alsace to be balanced, I think she'd need some less-than-optimal shell or gun characteristics - otherwise her pure Alpha outclasses even the Montana by a big chunk, and she'd also be monstrously powerful against DDs and CAs just because they'd have nowhere safe to be within that death net of shells. Maybe give her a bit less RoF, since there'd be more guns to load per turret... 1.8 RPM would work out to ~340k DPM, which seems more manageable considering the other advantages she'd have...

 

On the one hand I understand the possible need and even possible historical reasoning behind a reduced rof, on the other hand, I roeally wouldn't like having to go that way. Another realistic possibility would be reduced damage/shell, to about 10-11k, which is, again, not something I'd like to do, especially in light of other, lower tiered, 15"-armed ships that have higher damage output/shell. Other factors that could balance her could be accuracy, range or turret traverse, none of which are things I'd like to go on savagely cutting down, because the total annihilation of one is always going to render the ship entirely skill-independent in most cases.

 

When it comes to HE, I don't thinki you could make an HE round bad enough for it not to work: after all, it's 16 15" shells with a minimum firechance of 17-20% each...