British Battleship line for 2017?

[SmartassNoob]

Oh, you mean like how all their light cruisers in reality were equipped with AP only? 

 

[Hans_the_Hawk]

 

US AA - "After 2 years of watching"? Yeah, so?

Sorry don't understand what you are trying to say here

 

Example of german technology: Aiming equipment. The english were so impressed by it that they spent quite a bit of effort to fish out the aiming gear from one of the PBBs.

A good example of where German tech was superior, but I still don't think t can be said the Germans were superior in all  naval tech

 

BB prices: The english become very good at producing military hardware for extra few money. Just look at their submachine guns. The germans, while designing the Bismak, knew that they could never compete in numbers, so they decided to spend extra to make sure they get it right. What's the problem? Germany at the time didn't have any BBs. Makes sense that they had to spend extra to catch up. It took the english an entire fleet to hunt it down. Seems like they got what they payed for. The KGV may have been cheap, but its guns/turrets were 50% out of action during battles due to terrible quality.

it's the same old chestnut about the failure of some barrels of the KGV class guns, yes , they did have failures , yes quite a few on the early outings,  especially the POW vs Bismark as she was basically unfinished at the time, these problems were solved over time. All navies had barrel failures even the germans at times

 

 

 

Anyway, it's my understanding that the main BB-advantage that the english had was the large number of them. But of course, they were mostly WW1 ships, since there had been minimal need for additional modern ones.

This is true of all WW2 navies pretty much except Germany, every other nation ( US, IJN, FRENCH, ITALIAN;) had more WW1 era BBs in their fleet than WW2 era

 

[SeaMonsterUK]

Oh, you mean like how all their light cruisers in reality were equipped with AP only? 

 

You mean Wargaming's big mistake? I applaud them for their efforts to make the British Light Cruisers unique but seriously? Besides, it could be expanded to tier 6+, but not on ships already able to use a recon plane.

[Grimsley]

 Accidentally messed up this first one with a double post, apologies.

[Grimsley]

Germans had technology

 

The germans, while designing the Bismak, knew that they could never compete in numbers, so they decided to spend extra to make sure they get it right.

 

Sounds dangerously close to the "German = uber tech" mythos that seems to crop up everywhere around WW2 games. Bear in mind, the Germans missed out on a lot of capital ship design experience and advancement interwar.

 

From Friedman's summary comparison of KGV-Bismarck (I've snipped out some of the numbers parts or else it would be too long):

 

 
Like King George V, Bismarck had vertical belt armour ... Compared British ships, it extended far too short a distance below the waterline. Bismarck had First World War-style deck armour, sloping down to meet the lower edge of the belt: 100–120mm (3.9–4.7in) thick, with an upper 50mm (1.9in) deck (DNC thought initially that it must be much thicker, at least 6in) ... The armour deck was the communications deck: vital wiring and piping were installed atop it, where they were vulnerable to plunging fire and also to fragments knocked out of the main belt. Presumably that was done to clear the overheads of the machinery spaces below armour. Magazines were immediately below the armour deck, not below shell rooms as in British practice. The wide side protective system did not include a British- or US-style sandwich including a liquid layer and an inboard air layer. In effect it was a First World War system using oil rather than coal, backed by a 45mm (1.8in) torpedo bulkhead.
Considerable weight had gone into twin main-battery turrets and separate anti-destroyer and anti-aircraft batteries, both of which the Royal Navy had wanted but had had to reject in order to stay within 35,000 tons. Bismarck had almost a third more power and proportionately heavier machinery (2800 tons plus 1428 tons of auxiliaries, which the British presumably included in machinery weight). It appears that British machinery was much more efficient in terms of weight per SHP. DNC grossly underestimated the ship’s machinery weight despite overestimating her designed output. 
Not surprisingly, after Hood was lost the naval staff and British officers plagued DNC. Surely the ship which had sunk Hood was a supership with a specially good hull form and protection. DNC did not think so. He could not see why the German designer had made the ship so beamy. First Sea Lord thought the German hull ‘gave good results’ (in the context of the redesigned Lion), but DNC pointed out that Bismarck had been lucky to make her first and only cruise in relatively calm seas, otherwise it might have been obvious that she was too stiff and a poor seakeeper with too little freeboard. DNC thought that the beamy hull made sense only as a way of limiting draught; it made for a shallow hull with strength problems. 
... The great beam offered a better target to plunging shells. The beamy hull form with fine ends was not particularly good hydrodynamically, either. Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz probably would not have stood up very well to British fire at normal battle ranges. In 1943 Duke of York penetrated Scharnhorsts thicker (350mm) belt to hit and disable her machinery, dooming her, and put Scharnhorsts ‘A’ turret out of action at about 15,000 yds. Later penetrating hits were made at shorter ranges (10,000 yds and below), at which this armour could not have resisted 14in shellfire.
In 1941 the Admiralty thought that King George V and Nelson should fight Tirpitz from beyond 20,000 yds, but that was probably an exaggeration. Both the British and the German ships had fire-control systems well adapted to long-range fire, but the British ships had far better protection against plunging fire.

 

In many areas Bismarck was almost a WW1 era design blown up to large proportions and with early WW2 gunnery. A scary foe but it doesn't sound much like a world breaking masterpiece of design/technology.

[SmartassNoob]

Sounds dangerously close to the "German = uber tech" mythos that seems to crop up everywhere around WW2 games. Bear in mind, the Germans missed out on a lot of capital ship design experience and advancement interwar.

 

I know their stuff wasn't the best at everything. I was just explaining why they ended up spending so much extra on that one ship.

 

And to me the Bismark doesn't look like a WW1 ship. It looks like a scaled up cruiser. Just look at their cruisers and tell me the Bismark wouldn't fit at the end of that tree. It's like they were designed by the same guy who just decided to submit the same design several times with numbers increased by some percentage.

 

But either way, BBs are all about balancing speed, armor and firepower. If you want them all, you'll just end up with an enormous oil tanker like their top H-ships. The english BBs were generally a bit on the slow side, so the germans decided to invest more on speed and less on armor. So? And another thing, the Bismark was never really meant to fight battleships. It, just like many other high-end german ships, was just a large commerce raider. It was meant to fight convoys from the Americas and sail away at the first sign of approaching BBs. It makes little sense to compare it directly to BBs that were designed to fight BBs.

 

By purpose. the Bismark was like a follow-up to the PBB (pocket battleship). The problem with the PBBs was that they were indeed able to blow up any merchant convoy, but they weren't fast enough to get away from a few light cruisers and lacked the firepower to fight them and lacked the armor to survive them too. The Bismark was designed to fill this exact role.

[VC381]

It doesn't matter what Bismarck looks like, it matters how she is designed internally. The Graf Spee class isn't really in her lineage, the Scharnhost is, which in turn uses a lot of elements of internal structure from the Ersatz Yorck project battlecruisers of WWI, because the Germans had no experience of making a ship that size since. Basically the way the ship is laid out internally is at least 20 years obsolete before she hit the water (I'm talking Scharnhorst) with Bismarck making no real improvements other than doing everything on a bigger scale. I would guess the reason she was so expensive is not because the Germans spent money making sure it was "right", but because they were already stretching their ability to make a ship that big and complex and she ended up over budget and costing way too much for what they actually got. It was probably more expensive to build up all the internal armoured structure like the turtleback compared to e.g. KGVs "slap the belt on the outside" approach, all expense that really wasn't worth it given how out-dated the layout was. Basically every single serious analysis done by historians since WWII has concluded Bismarck was the worst design amongst the battleships build in the 1930s and WWII. You talk about design balance. Look at North Carolina compared to Bismarck, only 2 knots slower, better protected, better armed, and on 10,000t less displacement. Again, the Germans built a big expensive ship because they had no idea how to squeeze the same (or better) capability into a smaller and cheaper one, like everyone else did. The cost doesn't show the ship is better, it shows the design is inefficient.

[SmartassNoob]

I like to think I'm at least half right for assuming that a lot of money was wasted simply because they had no recent experience building large ships. Also, I should have said before that what they thought was "right" is not necessarily what really turned out to have been the best, but whatever.

[Baunummer509]

Oh well. Bismarck was such a flawed design that KGV easily blew her away or PoW (which had some problems with shafts and Torpedoes...). And the order to english battleships not to alone engage Tirpitz was just for fun. Or the order to leave Renown behind when enganging Tirpitz. And The ability of KGV and Rodney to harm Bismarcks vitals.

And yes, the battle proven american Battleships, fighting no actions or action against a inferior opponent. And what about a South Dakota with 57,540ts in a Storm? Very good design, indeed.

 

No, I don't want to get deeper because you don't seem to be willing to get deeper into and more willing to stay on the "the brits had the best ships" side. They didn't. Probably the've had the best sailors, but surely not ships.

 

[SeaMonsterUK]

Oh well. Bismarck was such a flawed design that KGV easily blew her away or PoW (which had some problems with shafts and Torpedoes...). And the order to english battleships not to alone engage Tirpitz was just for fun. Or the order to leave Renown behind when enganging Tirpitz. And The ability of KGV and Rodney to harm Bismarcks vitals.

And yes, the battle proven american Battleships, fighting no actions or action against a inferior opponent. And what about a South Dakota with 57,540ts in a Storm? Very good design, indeed.

 

No, I don't want to get deeper because you don't seem to be willing to get deeper into and more willing to stay on the "the brits had the best ships" side. They didn't. Probably the've had the best sailors, but surely not ships.

 

 

KGV wasn't along vs Bismarck, and couldn't easily blow her away as she could only penetrate her reliably at close range, it was also a salvo of torpedoes that finished her off and not KGV. So I wouldn't at all say that Bismarck's design was flawed. as it wasn't.

[SmartassNoob]

Actually, as for blowing Bismark away, I've heard that Bismark apparently wasn't "blown away" at all. It was detonated by its own crew who set explosives into the hull to prevent ship capture and that's what sunk the ship in the end. The english of course like to argue that their ships were the best and they totally kicked the [edited]of the enemy who sunk their precious Hood.

[SeaMonsterUK]

Actually, as for blowing Bismark away, I've heard that Bismark apparently wasn't "blown away" at all. It was detonated by its own crew who set explosives into the hull to prevent ship capture and that's what sunk the ship in the end. The english of course like to argue that their ships were the best and they totally kicked the [edited]of the enemy who sunk their precious Hood.

 

They tried to scuttle her yes, but we still claimed the kill. So the Royal Navy did sink her.

[SmartassNoob]

Yes, a whole fleet vs 1 crippled BB. That unexpected victory is surely evidence of who had the best ships.

[SeaMonsterUK]

Yes, a whole fleet vs 1 crippled BB. That unexpected victory is surely evidence of who had the best ships.

 

Of course, but it wasn't the quality but the ammount of ships.

[SmartassNoob]

Yet I keep hearing that the Bismark was the worst-designed ship ever.

[SeaMonsterUK]

Yet I keep hearing that the Bismark was the worst-designed ship ever.

 

In comparison to King George V, I'd argue the Bismarck was better designed, but Kriegsmarine naval doctrine was the problem, as well it's overall size.

[VC381]

Bismarck's armour was flawed in concept because it failed to protect key systems. It was far too easy to silence her main battery and sever the internal communication lines that allowed the ship to actually be commanded. The fact she was so hard to sink is irrelevant when she was so easy to disable.

[1MajorKoenig]

Wow - how much time can we waste by arguing about KGV's guns...? ;-)

 

Looking forward to sink some of these! With the current (and projected after RN BB line release) amount of BBs we can do some nice Jutland like slug fests. Remember the 8vs8 Nassaus...?

 

Curious: how is the RN-fans' perception about fantasy refits? As both Orion and Iron Duke got scrapped relatively early WG will most likely bastardize them into some E.T.-NASA like space Yamatos. What do you guys think about these two ? Would be T4 and 5

[SmartassNoob]

I'm sure the english had at least 5 real ships for each tier up to 6.

[Trainspite]

 

KGV wasn't along vs Bismarck, and couldn't easily blow her away as she could only penetrate her reliably at close range, it was also a salvo of torpedoes that finished her off and not KGV. So I wouldn't at all say that Bismarck's design was flawed. as it wasn't.

 

Bismarck was slowly sinking at the time however. The torpedoes and scuttling just hastened her demise. German compartmentalization doing it's job I guess. (German BCs etc.).

 

Bismarck's armour was flawed in concept because it failed to protect key systems. It was far too easy to silence her main battery and sever the internal communication lines that allowed the ship to actually be commanded. The fact she was so hard to sink is irrelevant when she was so easy to disable.

 

Basically this as well.

 

Curious: how is the RN-fans' perception about fantasy refits? As both Orion and Iron Duke got scrapped relatively early WG will most likely bastardize them into some E.T.-NASA like space Yamatos. What do you guys think about these two ? Would be T4 and 5

 

 

Orion should probably end up looking a bit like Revenge, not that extensively modernised, but to at least certain degree.

Iron Duke should probably get a Warspite treatment with a mixed battery of 6" and 4", along with better machinery and the Queen Anne's Mansion.

 

[Trainspite]

I'm sure the english had at least 5 real ships for each tier up to 6.

 

BB

III - Dreadnought, Bellerophon (3), St Vincent (3)

IV - Neptune, Colossus (2), Orion (4), Agincourt, 

V - KGV 1911 (4), Iron Duke (4), Canada, Erin

VI - QE (5), Revenge (5)

 

BC

III - Invincible (3), Indefatigable (2+1)

IV - Lion (2), Queen Mary, Courageous (2)

V - Tiger

VI - Renown (2)

[1MajorKoenig]

I'm sure the english had at least 5 real ships for each tier up to 6.

 

They had multiple yes. But WG's messed up power progression dictates that only fantasy ships can be at T4-5 apparently. 

 

At T3 there are all the initial dreadnought classes ranging from Dreadnought to Colossus, T4 would be a bastardized WW2 Orion and for T5 there is basically a choice of a WW2 Fantasy King George (the WW1 ship), Iron Duke or Revenge if you dare. T6 is pretty much a no-brainer and will be a WW2 QE.

 

@Trainspite: Agincourt should be a premium. She's a floating citadel with fourteen rifles (!)

[Trainspite]

 

They had multiple yes. But WG's messed up power progression dictates that only fantasy ships can be at T4-5 apparently. 

 

At T3 there are all the initial dreadnought classes ranging from Dreadnought to Colossus, T4 would be a bastardized WW2 Orion and for T5 there is basically a choice of a WW2 Fantasy King George (the WW1 ship), Iron Duke or Revenge if you dare. T6 is pretty much a no-brainer and will be a WW2 QE.

 

@Trainspite: Agincourt should be a premium. She's a floating citadel with fourteen rifles (!)

 

Well, as far a floating citadel as Kongo is. She should be a premium, but when listing real ships.. ;) 

[1MajorKoenig]

 

Well, as far a floating citadel as Kongo is. She should be a premium, but when listing real ships.. ;) 

 

Hmm her citadel must go from bow to stern with 7 (!) turrets and attached magazines. 

[SmartassNoob]

I would totally buy Agincourt. Unless they'd turn it into the worst shotgun ever, it should destroy anything it shoots at, so yes it would be vulnerable from the side, but it would need to show its side for the duration of the smallest possible amount of time. 

 

Unfortunately, they'll probably figure that no armor, no speed, no AA guns and poor maneuverability means tier V material.  

 

@1MajorKoenig, not just that, but it had really poor armor for a BB of its time.