T6 French Premium: Battleship Dunkerque Disappoints

[VeteranGamer84]

Why does WG release sort of bad premium ships? They want money, aren't they? So does selling bad premium ships will make them get that money? I doubt it.

[ImperialAdmiral]

Still gonna buy her.

[VeteranGamer84]

Still gonna buy her.

 

Why?!

[TomaszuJerzy]

Looks like a decent ship. I watched ichase video and the stuff he [edited]about like loosing turrets just dont happen or hes lack of pen is caused by poor aiming. Anyway it managed a tier 8 game so i think at tier 6 it will be a killer. Just face toward enemy and you have 8 barrels and small silhoulette. And this speed of 30kt is awesome. I would trade it for my slow [edited]shotgun spread warspite any day.

[Mhtsos]

I hope they'll give the Strasbourg in the main line.

All the good parts of the Dunkerque, but with better armour.

It's a pity because IRL was a very advanced ship for her time. 

 

Also, as this is an arcade-fantasy game, they could at least give the option of mounting the 1949 FC correction for improving the dispersion.

[Gunerstile]

I see nothing in that review that surprises me, and it doesn’t dissuade me from thinking about getting it. If you have read some history books before playing the Dunkerque, it will enable you to understand its limitations before playing it. In order to understand the Dunkerque, its philosophy and design, you need to understand the Deutschland. The Dunkerque was a direct response to that. Its sole purpose was to hunt down and defeat the Deutschland. It was never designed to take on anything with 14” or larger caliber guns. Its armour was designed to withstand German 11” shells.

 

Dispersion, I wouldn’t expect good dispersion. In reality, it had terrible dispersion, just as the Richelieu class did. That issue wasn’t fixed until after WW2 ended. As the guns were designed to defeat the Deutschland, I wouldn’t expect them to be great against genuine BB’s, competent yes, but not great. The secondaries were known to be poor, including its AA capabilities.

 

Knowing all that should give you a heads up on what to expect. With that in mind, you are not going to put yourself at the very front of your teams thrust. You would be a little cautious to start with. Observe the other team’s movements, and pick your targets carefully.

 

The Dunkerque may be a BB, but it’s a hybrid built for a specific reason, a bit like the Atlanta if you like. Now you can’t always pick your fights, but if you come up against other T6 BB’s, you are more than likely going to come out second best.

 

You are going to need perseverance to get your head around it. Just don’t expect a full blooded battleship, because it never was one.

 

First I must say that I 100% agree with you about knowing some bits of history and/or ships designs before buying them or playing them, and as much as Dunkirk is appealing to me with its looks, unique design/play stile, history importance I just cant see myself buying it, why? 

If all what Flamu (and many other CCS) have said and pointed out, it gets wrecked by anything above 14" guns and it gets wrecked by airplanes, simply said it will put me quite often in the situation where I will be one v one against such ship where running (even for French  BB ) is not an option, and what will happen then?

[22cm]

…  where running (even for French  BB ) is not an option… 

 

^

[VC381]

To be honest the main thing I learned from this review coupled with the Scharnhorst one is that Flamu loves armor. To me it comes off as really inconsistent the way he says Scharnhorst is the most fun and best thing ever and this is terrible, when the role they fill is so similar (cruiser hunting). So the guns on this are weak because they're the smallest at T6, but the ones on Scharnhorst are fine despite being not the smallest at T7, but the smallest BB guns in the game full stop? OK so the armor on this sucks, basically he's judging it on that which is fair enough but I can't help feel it's biased.

[Aotearas]

To be honest the main thing I learned from this review coupled with the Scharnhorst one is that Flamu loves armor. To me it comes off as really inconsistent the way he says Scharnhorst is the most fun and best thing ever and this is terrible, when the role they fill is so similar (cruiser hunting). So the guns on this are weak because they're the smallest at T6, but the ones on Scharnhorst are fine despite being not the smallest at T7, but the smallest BB guns in the game full stop? OK so the armor on this sucks, basically he's judging it on that which is fair enough but I can't help feel it's biased.

 

The thing is the Scharnhorst, whilst not having the guns to duel it out with another BB, has the armour to tank it and its guns are entirely sufficient for the role of killing cruisers (or putting opportune volleys into broadside BBs ... or putting some HE volleys into angled BBs).

 

The Dunkerque does not have the armour to tank another BB and whilst its guns are good enough to penetrate other BBs, you do not have good chances in a straight up 1vs1. And for cruiser killing, whilst not bad at all it does not have the rate of fire to really excel at it.

 

 

Or in other words: the Scharnhorst fulfills it's role and is still good at other things, whereas the Dunkerque fulfills its role and does bad in everything else.

[JohnA87]

Looks to me like this ship needs some buffs if it is to be considered decent..

How about better dispersion and 25 second reload? Will make her more comfortable to play yet maintain the fact that she burns like a cinder and still gets eaten by other "true" BBs

[Mucker]

Why does WG release sort of bad premium ships? They want money, aren't they? So does selling bad premium ships will make them get that money? I doubt it.

 

A premium ships appeal does not start and end with it's OP/UP factor, Dunkerque, just as Scharnhorst, offers some unique traits, that can be appealing to certain people. That already warrants the premium status.

 

For me a good example is Warspite vs. Arizona. Arizona is highly effective, yet it has no unique traits - it just a neat package that works great for most players.

Warspite on the other hand is arguably less effective, however her punchy and accurate main caliber and the maxed secondaries often leave me with positive WTF? moments in battles - something the Arizona does not.  

[VC381]

 

The thing is the Scharnhorst, whilst not having the guns to duel it out with another BB, has the armour to tank it and its guns are entirely sufficient for the role of killing cruisers (or putting opportune volleys into broadside BBs ... or putting some HE volleys into angled BBs).

 

The Dunkerque does not have the armour to tank another BB and whilst its guns are good enough to penetrate other BBs, you do not have good chances in a straight up 1vs1. And for cruiser killing, whilst not bad at all it does not have the rate of fire to really excel at it.

 

 

Or in other words: the Scharnhorst fulfills it's role and is still good at other things, whereas the Dunkerque fulfills its role and does bad in everything else.

 

I take your point, and he does say that it's fun. I don't need this ship to be OP, I was just trying to understand how the criticism fits into the bigger picture.

[Hanszeehock]

I really like Duncan (or Dunkin donuts). She offers something different at T6 and is a fun ship. You have to be careful when playing her but she can do extremely well if you get your positioning right. Having 8 barrels at the front makes her a real cruiser killer and some battles are citadel central. Like this one :

 

Spoiler

 

 

Ok the AA is crap but at T6 this is not a huge problem. The secondaries can be great, if you enemy is in the right place, i.e. at you stern !!! So if you are looking for something different, that can be challenging to play and fun, then Duncan I highly recommend. 

[Mucker]

She can launch a fighter pane, can't she? That can can be considered a little AA boost on demand. 

[Darth_Glorious]

She can launch a fighter pane, can't she? That can can be considered a little AA boost on demand. 

 

Yes, she can...

[JohnA87]

Just watched Jingles video review, 4th i have seen, the only one who seems half satisfied is Aerroon and not even he is really impressed..

 

Shame i was really looking forward to this one, however in this sorry state it seems to be my excitement is rather Limited ☹️

[Shirakami_Kon]

To be honest the main thing I learned from this review coupled with the Scharnhorst one is that Flamu loves armor. To me it comes off as really inconsistent the way he says Scharnhorst is the most fun and best thing ever and this is terrible, when the role they fill is so similar (cruiser hunting). So the guns on this are weak because they're the smallest at T6, but the ones on Scharnhorst are fine despite being not the smallest at T7, but the smallest BB guns in the game full stop? OK so the armor on this sucks, basically he's judging it on that which is fair enough but I can't help feel it's biased.

 

If you don't take the armor into account when playing BBs what do you take into account then? The guns only? The guns won't do anything from the bottom of the sea if the armor doesn't protect the ship carrying them.

[Mucker]

Kongo/Amagi also have craptastic armor for a BB/BC, yet this weakness can be hidden very well when played properly. I'm sure same can be said about the Dunkerque. 

[Shirakami_Kon]

Kongo/Amagi also have craptastic armor for a BB/BC, yet this weakness can be hidden very well when played properly. I'm sure same can be said about the Dunkerque. 

 

Angling the ship, yes. Look carefully at 5:00 of the video, please do it.

[Mucker]

 

Angling the ship, yes. Look carefully at 5:00 of the video, please do it.

 

Thats the beauty of 15"+ overmatch. But make no mistake, put any other T6 BB (maybe with the exception if the upcoming Bayern) in that place, it would have suffered the same fate. There is a review where Dunkerque completely bounces Fuso's 14" shells from point blank range bow on. In that particular situation it would have probably been better to expose more side armor, to force an autobounce on a thicker plate. I have not seen Dunkerques game armor layout yet, but my guess is because of the forward turrets, the belt should extend quite a bit forward.

 

 

[VC381]

Armor is important if you plan to slug it out with another BB. The point of ships like this (and battlecruisers in general) is that you use your speed to be where you need to be and hunt cruisers, and just avoid getting shot up by BBs completely. At T6 where every other BB barely scrapes 23 knots this shouldn't be difficult at all. You don't fight the enemy BBs yourself, you wipe out the rest of their team then run away from them and leave them to your DDs or something.

[Aotearas]

Armor is important if you plan to slug it out with another BB. The point of ships like this (and battlecruisers in general) is that you use your speed to be where you need to be and hunt cruisers, and just avoid getting shot up by BBs completely. At T6 where every other BB barely scrapes 23 knots this shouldn't be difficult at all. You don't fight the enemy BBs yourself, you wipe out the rest of their team then run away from them and leave them to your DDs or something.

 

Problem is at tier VI you also get smaller maps. Couple that with say a Fusou's gun range of up to ~21km and tough luck trying to evade that one short of running and putting the entire map between the two of you.

And the tiers at which you get bigger maps are also the tiers you start running into ships like the North Carolina, Amagi and Tirpitz from which running away is a much more difficult option and we already know the Dunkerque doesn#t scale well at all when uptiered thanks to the 380+mm overmatch. And it doesn't look much better against cruisers too, considering her apparent vulnerability to HE ... tier VII+ is where the golden age of HE cruisers really kicks off with ubiquitous 203mm HE rain.

[Mucker]

To be fair, no current T6 BB can cope frontally with 380 mm+ overmatch mechanics, so it is not a Dunkerque-only weakness by all means.

 

[Unintentional_submarine]

To be fair, no current T6 BB can cope frontally with 380 mm+ overmatch mechanics, so it is not a Dunkerque-only weakness by all means.

 

 

If you don't count Fuso and her 102mm bow armour... She can of course still get penetrated in the upper bow for regular penetrations, but that area is very small looking at her in a bow-in scenario.

[Darth_Glorious]

Why do you worry about it? Not many shells can hit a bow on Dunkerque...Bow on Dunkerque is very hard to kill if you cannot flank her, even with Nagato and Colorado.