Whats the tactic for destroyers that just machine gune you from smoke?

[_x_Acheron_x_]

All the time I get this at high tiers. tash, Gear, Fletcher and the worst offenders.

 

Pop smoke. Sit in the middle of smoke machine gunning you from 11km away. If you're in a BB you cant approach, because they'll torp you before you can see them (which is like, 1km anyway). Same sort of thing with cruisers. I'm also not wasting a 30 second reload 'guessing' where they might be, based on where it looks like the shells are coming out of.

 

I assume it's just free damage for them with no way to counter this crap?

[piritskenyer]

Radar. Hydro. Active hydro cruisers on low tiers, Radar cruisers on higher tiers.

[duoinvasion]

rush smoke if he used torps

 

[Odo_Toothless]

Without your team suport, you can only run. Rush - if you want to die fast ;-)

 

By the way most small caliber HE shells do a little or 0 damage and in high tiers your fire resistance is very high, so it should be not a big problem. Worse if such DD is going after you and fire all the time from his invisibility range. Joining your other forces and spotter plane are the only options then.

[Kenliero]

This is why you are not sitting in the open waters, in the middle of nowhere(except in ocean map). I always position myself so that I am not too far from islands and allied cruisers. You always need to have option to find cover, even with battleship.

[Aotearas]

For a DD (or any other ship exploited smoke to fire at you whilst undetected you technically have three course of actions available:

 

-Run away to get outside the DDs firing range or line-of-fire (cover), forcing him to abandon his attack or exit the smoke and potentionally reveal himself to you and your allies.

-Rush the smoke and kill the offending ship (very risky, but depending on your ship, your consumables (Radar or HAS, the likelyhood of getting torpedoed or running into more enemies on the way, it can be quite successful)

-Kill the smoke exploiters eyes, i.e. his allies that are spotting you. Without anyone having line of sight to you, a DD can't shoot at what he doesn't see.

 

In a BB, I'd typically favour the first option, provided I doesn't necessitate me giving a broadside to enemy ships in a turn.

A cruiser with HAS can aggressively push into smoke, so if there aren't too many other enemy ships firing at you, option two isn't typically bad.

The third option is largely hypothetical because you typically tend to be spotted by more than one or two ships at any given moment, making it unfeasable to destroy all of those in a timely enough fashion that you actually benefit from a shorter overall period of being detected.

[Synth_FG]

I find the best way of dealing with these is to either yourself or another dd to torp the smoke

A stationary dd does not have the maneuverability to avoid and is incredibly vulnerable

[159Hunter]

Well, if it's a fletcher then I'm less worried. A gearing / khabarovsk and udaloi are far more lethal

That being said, all depends on the situation: distance to smoke, the ship in smoke, the other ships in the area and your ship.
Generally speaking, in a cruiser or a gunboat dd I will rish the smoke, unless if there's a lot of opposition.

In a BB, I will shout at friendlies to rush smoke :p and take a distance myself.

 

Torping into smoke if you have them is also very very good. You could also attempt to shoot at him base on the tracers coming out of the smoke, but this is a waste for BB ( even with bigger dispersion you might get more lucky ).

 

 

[_FTD_]

For a DD (or any other ship exploited smoke to fire at you whilst undetected you technically have three course of actions available:

 

-Run away to get outside the DDs firing range or line-of-fire (cover), forcing him to abandon his attack or exit the smoke and potentionally reveal himself to you and your allies.

-Rush the smoke and kill the offending ship (very risky, but depending on your ship, your consumables (Radar or HAS, the likelyhood of getting torpedoed or running into more enemies on the way, it can be quite successful)

-Kill the smoke exploiters eyes, i.e. his allies that are spotting you. Without anyone having line of sight to you, a DD can't shoot at what he doesn't see.

 

In a BB, I'd typically favour the first option, provided I doesn't necessitate me giving a broadside to enemy ships in a turn.

A cruiser with HAS can aggressively push into smoke, so if there aren't too many other enemy ships firing at you, option two isn't typically bad.

The third option is largely hypothetical because you typically tend to be spotted by more than one or two ships at any given moment, making it unfeasable to destroy all of those in a timely enough fashion that you actually benefit from a shorter overall period of being detected.

It's basically what a DD wants, he can push a lot more dmg while you are turning away and the most important thing he secures the area for the team. It's literally a win win situation for the DD player and his team, on top of that the CA player are usually further in front than the BB anyways and if you turn away they become the main target (if they arent already) and die while the most sturdy ship of the fleet is running away...

[Takru]

Someone is being jealous 'cause another troll got way more attention that he did.

[beercrazy]

just zoom into where you see the shoots coming from and then fire individual shots spreading your fire around where the dd is firing from and you will get the odd hit and the dd will then stop firing or run away most of the time

 

[loppantorkel]

It's basically what a DD wants, he can push a lot more dmg while you are turning away and the most important thing he secures the area for the team. It's literally a win win situation for the DD player and his team, on top of that the CA player are usually further in front than the BB anyways and if you turn away they become the main target (if they arent already) and die while the most sturdy ship of the fleet is running away...

The problem is when there's a Des Moines or Moskva waiting behind or a Shima screening the smoke. Not fun charging toward the smoke in a dd in those cases. I hope they nerf smoke-shooting. Bad mechanic.

[_FTD_]

The problem is when there's a Des Moines or Moskva waiting behind or a Shima screening the smoke. Not fun charging toward the smoke in a dd in those cases. I hope they nerf smoke-shooting. Bad mechanic.

So in this case you want to nerf it because good teamplay rewards it? Amazing.

[Kais_S012]

Hydro/Radar or Torp the smoke on a wide spread if your got them, don't forget smoke is a double edged blade, players cannot see into the smoke and players cannot see out of it. unless the guilty party in the smoke has a ally plane or ship close enough to detect the torpedoes then the DD will not detect them until its far too late.

[loppantorkel]

So in this case you want to nerf it because good teamplay rewards it? Amazing.

Not because good teamplay rewards it. Never said that. I just don't like it, either when exploiting it or when on the receiving end. Why would that be amazing?

[AnotherDuck]

It's basically what a DD wants, he can push a lot more dmg while you are turning away and the most important thing he secures the area for the team. It's literally a win win situation for the DD player and his team, on top of that the CA player are usually further in front than the BB anyways and if you turn away they become the main target (if they arent already) and die while the most sturdy ship of the fleet is running away...

 

Personally, if I fire on larger ships with a DD (and it's not because there's no reason not to, or the ship has low enough health to kill), it's either to drive them away, or to catch their attention and drag it from other ships. Actual damage done usually isn't that significant.

[_x_Acheron_x_]

Hydro/Radar or Torp the smoke on a wide spread if your got them, don't forget smoke is a double edged blade, players cannot see into the smoke and players cannot see out of it. unless the guilty party in the smoke has a ally plane or ship close enough to detect the torpedoes then the DD will not detect them until its far too late.

 

 

It never feels that it works like this.

[Aotearas]

It's basically what a DD wants, he can push a lot more dmg while you are turning away and the most important thing he secures the area for the team. It's literally a win win situation for the DD player and his team, on top of that the CA player are usually further in front than the BB anyways and if you turn away they become the main target (if they arent already) and die while the most sturdy ship of the fleet is running away...

 

And props to the DD driver if it works.

 

Though typically a BB doesn't have to run far, especially when you actually have some cruisers with you, since DDs tend to use an offensive smoke at a bit of distance. So if you can put possibly 2km more between yourself and the spewing DD you can already be out of his range and that's still plenty close enough for a BB to be a solid backbone for his cruisers provided he knows when to turn around and push again and the cruisers don't mindlessly rush ahead unawaare of their surroundings.

[Akula971]

The big risk for the DD player is knowing when his smoke is going to run out. His visibility is much higher when shooting. If you are a full HP BB, they shouldn't worry you, at least you and your team know where he is. Its a tactic to deny an area of catch out the fool hardy who rush the smoke.........What there were two DDs in that smoke? How do I avoid those torps?  If I see a team mate smoking up and firing, I'll sneak in and line up a torp spread, which may just miss, and the cruiser rushes in thinking "reload" ...............but there in, is the surprise.

[Krizmuz]

everytime you press one of the WASD keys at least 5 US DD salvos will miss you

[Dampfboot]

Offensive smoke is the worst feature of this game anyway.

But torping works quite well. Sometimes taunting in chat works as well but has only ca. 30% hit chance.

Basically as a BB you shouldn't be alone. Russian DDs with AP are quite deadly for Cruisers, so some torps are the best solution.

[Seoirse]

As one of those scummy DD players I'd agree with the torping tactic. Hiding in smoke and sitting still is a big risk vs torp spam. I like to create a big spread of smoke and move in it while shooting, it helps a bit against sudden torpedos. Also having cruisers firing into the smoke creates a lot of brown trouser moments, eventually something will stick. Never rush smoke in a BB though, way too risky.

[Comrad_StaIin]

Torp flood the smoke

[StringWitch]

Torp the smoke.

Radar or hydro.

Radar and hydro in sequence if you really want to make DDs crap themselves.

Be near islands so you can take cover. Always have an escape route... even on Ocean, and especially in carriers.

Watch for where the shots are coming from and shell the area (stay zoomed in so the smoke is less opaque). Takes practice to effectively gauge their (non-)movements, but with rapid-firing DDs it's reasonably easy and they'll stop spamming if they take a few hits.

The DD in smoke can't spot you so if you're out of detection range for others just stop shooting.

 

Or finally just remember even the most heavily-gunned DDs still have relatively poor damage output (unless you offer broadside at close range and they have the presence of mind to load AP) and smoke doesn't last all that long so they won't achieve a whole lot anyway, especially if they're shooting anything with heals.

[TheBigLanowski]

Well, if it's a fletcher then I'm less worried. A gearing / khabarovsk and udaloi are far more lethal

That being said, all depends on the situation: distance to smoke, the ship in smoke, the other ships in the area and your ship.

Generally speaking, in a cruiser or a gunboat dd I will rish the smoke, unless if there's a lot of opposition.

In a BB, I will shout at friendlies to rush smoke :p and take a distance myself.

 

Torping into smoke if you have them is also very very good. You could also attempt to shoot at him base on the tracers coming out of the smoke, but this is a waste for BB ( even with bigger dispersion you might get more lucky ).

 

 

 

I hope you meet my Fletcher some day lets see how you think after the engagement! Russian smoke doesn't last very long, so their power remains in long range stealth fire.

 

For the rest I completely agree with StringWitch!