First German BB Leak - STOP THIS PAPER "WHAT-IF" UPGRADE IDIOCY!

[Masterrix]

Scharnhorst is not the problem.

Scharnhorst is in the 1940 ? configuration and Gneisenau will get the 38er upgrade which was historically planed to realize

 

the problem is what WGN is doing to WW1 dreadnoughts.

yes they need some fictional upgrades in case of AA and armor to stay competitive.

but why does a T4 dreadnought need an atlantic bow ????

even the modern "Deutschland"-class never get an atlantic bow,

many british, american and japanese dreadnoughts never get a new bow over decades !!!!

so why the german T4....(and I assume they have done the same to T5 and 6.....)

 

there is a difference between "doing a fictional visual upgrade job to a ships hull", and "overdoing it".

for B-hull, they should use the A-hull with some fictional AA placements, and some small visual tweaks, but no modern interpretation of every visual attribute they can find. the historical appeareance should still shine through a fictional upgrade

 

[Admiral_noodle]

...when the actual finalised BB line is released a topic on any "unreal" modifications and asking the devs "what was your inspiration?" might be a good topic...

 

For now though -> speculation

 

Maybe we could ask "where did the idea of Pagoda Myogi come from"?

[Gunship14]

You'd think all these people would have quit when looking at any of the 100% imaginary ships in the game, instead of getting their panties in a bunch over changes to existing ships. If it's just a case of "Oh I'm so obsessed with KM I want them to be historical accurate but I don't care about other nations" then, that's just too bad. And I will say this to the RN fans when they go crazy over the same changes to RN ships, and so on. I, for one, would hate to play this game if it was true to life in every way.

 

Now, what WG needs to do is not give any fantasy hull upgrades to the ships, and just watch the waterfall of tears as people cry that they made KM underpowered.

[Masterrix]

Now, what WG needs to do is not give any fantasy hull upgrades to the ships, and just watch the waterfall of tears as people cry that they made KM underpowered.

 

I think u still don't understand about what we are actually speaking

[byronicasian]

I think at the lowtier-BBs (tier 3 and 4) they should use the historical hulls, perhaps with some additional AA-MGs (0815 or 20mm) or some heavier autocannons (37mm or early 40mm Bofors in singlemounts).

At tier 5 and 6 (we expect König-Klasse and Bayern-Klasse) hullupgrades with overhauled bowsection and conningtower, new heavy AA (new 88mm L/76 twinmount like Königsberg and Nürnberg), more 20mm in single- and twinmounts and a few 37mm for a AA-rating better than Japanese, but worse than US. Perhaps some modern rangefinders and early radar-antennas.

 

But the atlantic-bow for a tier 4 ship and modern ball-rangefinders for heavy AA is to much! Funnelcaps could be OK, because many WW1-BBs had issues with smoke round the mainmast and compromised rangefinding and firingcontroll.

 

What I don´t understand is the thing with the bealtarmour of the Kaisers- how on god´s earth did they get the 265mm beltarmour? The Kaisers had 350mm mainbelt on 80mm teak! If this is some balancingshit, than use Nassau and/or Helgoland for tier 3 and/or tier 4 premiums (both 300mm belt)! Stop this WG paperdesignfuck in the early tiers, where there were enough real ships with real good balancingparameters!

And 350mm belt on tier 4 doesn´t matter! I shot 10k-15k salvos on New Mexicos (343mm belt) with the Nikolai. Texas and New York (305mm belt) suffer by my Arkansas. So why should this be any balancingissue? It would be better WG would teach their newbies to aim and how to use different shelltypes, than fuckup in history operated BBs!

 

edit:

 

mistakes...

 

I also just noticed the leaked value of the main belt , 265mm is the exact median thickness given the variance of the main belt. You have thicknesses varying from 350mm-180mm. Total variance of 170mm. Half of that is 85mm. 350mm less 85 is 265. Could be a sign of a new port stat display method once armor view comes out, or the Chinese leaker thought median thickness is a more useful stat?

 

.

 

 

 

[TheCinC]

And playing the stock hull gives you that? Hell maybe even the B hull if there are 3 in total.

 

I mean, how is letting a WW1 fit dreadnought sail with/facing off against refitted BBs not just as immersion breaking.

 

It's as ridiculous of a sight as a cage mast Colorado sailing alongside the NC. 

 

We'll probably see similar upgrades on Royal Navy BBs also. Iron Duke, Tiger, and Lion will probably all get a fictional upgrade modeled after what the Renowns got. 

 

So a solution would be to decrease the tier spread in MM?

No need to try to fit an obsolete ship into a battle it has no place in?

Only exceptions for those ships that actually survived to receive such upgrades?

I am still waiting for a fully upgraded Pennsylvania class BB btw..

[CommissionerJan]

 

Now, what WG needs to do is not give any fantasy hull upgrades to the ships, and just watch the waterfall of tears as people cry that they made KM underpowered.

 

Looking at the statistics of, say, the Hindenburg I'm not exactly holding my breath anyway.

 

 

I think u still don't understand about what we are actually speaking

 

Neither do I, honestly.

 

Expecting any pre-WW1 ship, or even most ships built in the 20s, to survive and be in some way viable in a game where they can and will meet aircraft carriers from the 1940s without some upgrades, however hypothetical, can only result in a worse balancing desaster than we already face with the current system of AA and aircraft.

 

 

[CaptainThunderWalker]

Agreed. Most Tier III and IV are already underpowered versus CVs at that tier and if anything they need more extensive modernisations so they have enough AA to actually form a threat to those Tier IV CVs. If I'm in my Hosho and top tier I don't even have to worry about flying over any opposing ships except pagoda-masted Myogi's. If anything we'd need more unhistorical upgrades on Tier IV to give proper AA to the ships.

If you want all ships to be historical in the game we would get huge gaps (American Tier 10?). The only ships that would have significant AA on that tier would be the Dutch line if they ever come to the game, thanks to being too undergunned to put on the higher tiers.

 

Besides, the aforementioned Myogi's C-Hull is gorgeous. Seriously, accept the hypothetical modernisations. I'm pretty sure they would have taken place had the ships not been scrapped and I am pretty sure that Wargaming knows how to make them look realistic or at the very least good. Just have a look at the Myogi and compare it to the Kongo and there's no way you can say with a straight face that it is unrealistic.

 

But I'm a writer who likes to indulge in alternate history every now and then, so occassionally I design ships of my own and stuff, based on design choices and "what-if" scenarios.

[Walther_K_Nehring]

@ byronicasian

 

Yes, could be a reason.

 

To be totally sure, we have to wait untill there are leaked testserverstats with ingame screenshots. And I think there´s not much time left untill we will get Ze Germanz

 

@ CaptainThunderWalker

 

Again, please read carefully. There is no need to give a tier 4 battleship any atlantic-bow, or ball-rangefinders for heavy AA. The Imperial German Navy had some capable AA-guns (like the 88mm L/45 singelmount- early Königsberg-hull; or perhaps some 7,92mm machineguns 08/15) for a stock-hull. The B- and C-hull could be upgraded versions with some 20mm single- and twinmounts and some 37mm/40mm Bofors singlemounts. That´s way enough for tier 4!

And again- the mainthing here is, that we don´t want to have an atlantic-bow and modern rangefinders on such "old" ships.

At tier 5 (König) and tier 6 (Bayern/Baden) both would be OK. But not at tier 4!

[fnord_disc]

Maybe Kaiser should get a pagoda mast!

[Masterrix]

 

Looking at the statistics of, say, the Hindenburg I'm not exactly holding my breath anyway.

 

 

Neither do I, honestly.

 

Expecting any pre-WW1 ship, or even most ships built in the 20s, to survive and be in some way viable in a game where they can and will meet aircraft carriers from the 1940s without some upgrades, however hypothetical, can only result in a worse balancing desaster than we already face with the current system of AA and aircraft.

 

 

 

ok than let me explain it exclusively for u.

 

as I (and others) have said several times, its fully understandable that they use some fictional upgrades to make the B-hulls competitive

 

what we complain about is the amount of VISUAL changes to the model itself, its "overdone"

 

an antlantic bow for a T4 dreadnought ?, when even the modern "Deutschland"-class never got such a bow and many other british, japanese, american dreadnoughts never got a new bow over decades?

 

thats what I mean with "overdone" visual changes.

 

place some fictional AAs ? fine

give the ship more deck-armor ? fine

give the ship another engine to boost its speed ? fine

-> and the ship is balanced

 

but these balancing upgrades came along with overdone visual changes to the superstructure and hull, changing the historical look in a radical way, that isn't neccessary.

 

 

[byronicasian]

@ byronicasian

 

Yes, could be a reason.

 

To be totally sure, we have to wait untill there are leaked testserverstats with ingame screenshots. And I think there´s not much time left untill we will get Ze Germanz

 

Yea, I thought it was weird at first also. But the values being the exact median is just too much of a coincidence to be a proper in-game armor nerf IMO. Not to mention parts of leak seem to make no sense.

 

IIRC, the gun data-mine from last year had Nassau's guns in them, but somehow we have a named ship of the T4 tech tree ship as a "T3 premium" (when the devs mentioned this years German premiums to be Tiers 4, 6, 8). 

 

To many inconsistencies.  Better to wait for 0.5.8 so gamemodels3d can datamine the actual armor models.

[Gojuadorai]

but these balancing upgrades came along with overdone visual changes to the superstructure and hull, changing the historical look in a radical way, that isn't neccessary.

 

so you think engineers at the tim wouldnt have made the changes?

i dont think tey would have only made  engine changes and tag on guns that would look unbeliveable to me.

 

i see peple care about the historic look but a  historic look only with updated guns and stuff taged to it  would ruin it for me.

[AttiliusRex]

personally I'm a big fan of the "what if" upgrades to Myogi and Amagi. WG has shown that they can do a believable and good lucking upgrade that fits the nations design theme, it is after all pretty silly to play a tier 4 dreadnaught in 1917 configuration vs a tier 5 Kongou with 1944 kongfiguration.

 

What I do miss is a Great war era sandbox game mode, with only dreadnaughts (stock hulls), armored cruisers and destroyers.

[thestaggy]

I liked the look of the Myogi until I got the pagoda mast. I know it fits in well with the succeeding Kongo and Fuso, but there was something about the Myogi's sleakness that I found appealing.

 

 

[TheCinC]

 

ok than let me explain it exclusively for u.

 

as I (and others) have said several times, its fully understandable that they use some fictional upgrades to make the B-hulls competitive

 

what we complain about is the amount of VISUAL changes to the model itself, its "overdone"

 

an antlantic bow for a T4 dreadnought ?, when even the modern "Deutschland"-class never got such a bow and many other british, japanese, american dreadnoughts never got a new bow over decades?

 

thats what I mean with "overdone" visual changes.

 

place some fictional AAs ? fine

give the ship more deck-armor ? fine

give the ship another engine to boost its speed ? fine

-> and the ship is balanced

 

but these balancing upgrades came along with overdone visual changes to the superstructure and hull, changing the historical look in a radical way, that isn't neccessary.

 

 

 

Gotta say I agree with that, stick as close to the original as possible.

For paper designs it matters a lot less, but for ships that existed, keep it as close to realistic as possible.

 

Or, as I've suggested, adjust the matchmaking.

I feel there is a lot of room for expanding the lower tiers with pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts alike.

Those could just slug it out among themselves, without carrier interference.

[anonym_yABmLAWoZ6QF]

In my eyes there's a big difference between a paper ship and a fantasy ship. No to fantasy ships but a big YES to old original paper designs. 

[CommissionerJan]

 

ok than let me explain it exclusively for u.

 

what we complain about is the amount of VISUAL changes to the model itself, its "overdone"

 

an antlantic bow for a T4 dreadnought ?, when even the modern "Deutschland"-class never got such a bow

 

Thanks.

 

But it appears to me like said more modern 'Deutschland' class panzerschiffe actually received a rather more pronounced Atlantic Bow.

 

See attached ONI identification drawing

 

 

The fact that various later designs from WW1 already featured a raked bow leads me to believe that the Kaiserliche Marine, and later the Reichsmarine certainly understood that this bow arrangement could impreove weatherliness.

Which, in combination with the rather well-documented 'wet' conditions on the ships which had a 'straight' bow leads me to believe that in a hypothetical, alternate reality where those various ships were not scuttled to prevent capture, stricken following treaties, etc., would have seen modifications of the bow along similar lines.

 

 and many other british, japanese, american dreadnoughts never got a new bow over decades?

 

Many did not. But most of the ships that were not struck following the Treaties did not need a new bow. Look at the Japanese designs, or the US ones (especially the New Mexicos and later).

Essentialy, only the British insisted on the straight bow in their new construction, while the German designs moved away from that.

 

Again, in a hypothetical alternative reality a small cahnge to a bow is not a very big change fr a ship that might have served for 30 or more years.

 

thats what I mean with "overdone" visual changes.

 

place some fictional AAs ? fine

give the ship more deck-armor ? fine

give the ship another engine to boost its speed ? fine

-> and the ship is balanced

 

but these balancing upgrades came along with overdone visual changes to the superstructure and hull, changing the historical look in a radical way, that isn't neccessary.

 

Look at the changes to other ships that happened in the 20s and 30s.

The Kongos, Fusos, and various US 'standard' BBs had masts changed and replaced and expanded, gained superstructures, gained platforms and AA guns and directors and rangefinders and so on.

Nagato lost a smokestack when they changed out her machinery, and her already huge superstructure gained some more platforms, too.

Warspite changed her whole superstructure, ending up looking like a completely new ship..

Italian ships changed number and placement of smokestacks and even replaced a whole turret.

 

You can of course disagree, but expecting German ships to not change in the some way over the decades strikes me as odd. And comparatively small changes, if we want to be honest.

 

So do I think that it is too extreme to have a slightly expanded bow, a changed mainmast and an expanded spotting top in the foremast with a rangefinder on it in a hypothetically modernized Kaiser?

In one word, no.

 

And simply planting a bunch of MG 08/15 and 8,8cm FlaK on the decks would end up looking stupid.

[Unintentional_submarine]

Thanks.

 

But it appears to me like said more modern 'Deutschland' class panzerschiffe actually received a rather more pronounced Atlantic Bow.

 

See attached ONI identification drawing

 

Before someone jumps in with a "that isn't a picture.

 

 

Even bloody Schlesien and Schlewig-Holstein changed looks, despite being pretty much worthless. It is absurd to demand non-changing ships when it was the norm that big capital ships were modernised.

[fnord_disc]

Okay, enough joke posts. Let's make a serious one.

 

There is a very good reason AA guns can't simply be added to the hull. Space and height.

 

On both American and Japanese dreadnoughts, the bulk of light AA modernization was added to platforms around the bridge and funnel. Make fun of the pagoda mast all you want, but American battleships also received a significantly enlarged superstructure.

 

Anti-aircraft fire-control directors also benefit from good angles and thus mounting them higher up makes sense. You can see this on Kongo, where the Type 91 fire-control directors are mounted around the air defense level of the Pagoda mast, quite high up on the ship.

 

From a naval engineering standpoint, it is incredibly unlikely that the German navy could have upgraded the anti-aircraft suite without changing the superstructure significantly.

 

The main reason why pre-WW1 designs had much smaller superstructures than WW2 designs is exactly this. More light guns and more fire control simply requires more space, space which can be generated to a certain degree by enlarging the superstructure.

 

For example, if Bayern had survived the war, it's quite likely that she would have received a quite tall superstructure around the foremast because her compact size doesn't really let you put the additional equipment anywhere else. So I would prepare for a pretty different C Hull Bayern if I were you.

 

I mean, do you think the Japanese thought their Christmas trees looked hilarious or something? No. They wanted a lot of searchlights and AA and they relied a lot on bulky optical fire control. The ridiculous superstructure is a result of this engineering requirement.

[creamgravy]

it is after all pretty silly to play a tier 4 dreadnaught in 1917 configuration vs a tier 5 Kongou with 1944 kongfiguration.

 

Ishizuchi is a stock 1909 battlecruiser design including the AP shells. Arkansas Beta is a hybrid and Imperator Nikolai I is.... Russian.

 

 

[Ainene]

even the modern "Deutschland"-class never get an atlantic bow,

 

 

[Adwaenyth]

 

 

 

Besides that, I don't even see a clipper bow on the Kaiser class image. All I can see is a straight bow widening to the top (like lateral, not towards the axis of the ship).

[Unintentional_submarine]

Now that we have established that significant rebuilds were not only common, but downright required in many cases, I feel a need to address the 'lesser' complaint. That of the rebuild being too much, being wrong, whatever.

 

Overall I disagree, based on the previous points. However there is one thing I can see, if the leaks hold, that is perhaps less than optimal. And that's the funnels. The entire reason for the tall funnels on the German battleships were in order to lead the incredibly dense coal smoke away from areas that relied on visibility to function. Tall smoke stacks make sense, and was a common feature on the old coal burners (not so common that every coal burner had them). In a modernisation to make these ships... well modern and capable of engaging in modern battles, they would undoubtedly have been refitted with oil burners, had the smoke stacks reduced to a single large funnel (but ok, keeping the two thin ones is a concession I can accept), and had their height reduced with the addition of the funnel caps. Not this odd combination.

 

 

Besides that, I don't even see a clipper bow on the Kaiser class image. All I can see is a straight bow widening to the top (like lateral, not towards the axis of the ship).

 

It isn't exactly clear what the 'new' bow is, but new it is. The old Kaiser bow had a pronounced reverse.

Atlantic or not, I'm accepting of both. It could both have had it, and not had it. I think I would prefer it not being 'upgraded', but it is a very small point, since it could have had it.

[Meneleus]

I think it is a tad too early to commence with hysterics. It is not that we have a wealth of information available at the moment...

 

Cheers, M