Battlecruisers?

vasocam · February 25, 2017

Is it not time that battlecruisers are given their own Branch? We are missing a catagory of vessel that deserves its own place. Ok historically not every nation build them but the RN,USA,IJN,Kreigsmarine and Russia did. We have Amagi, Scharnhorst ect chucked in the BB line but the weaknesses become apparent when pitched against a BB. A seperate BC class would ensure that an equal no of BC's would be included in a game. It would give WG the chance to introduce ships like the Furious, Seydlitz, Borodino, Lexington and move Amagi, Fuso, ect into this branch to ensure a match for battles. I for one would to see ships like HMS Lion, Lutzow, Hood, sailing the Wg seas.

Shirakami_Kon · February 25, 2017

Yeah, even if the armor of battlecruisers it's not that good I really like them. It's fun to have a bit more challenge playing them than proper BBs, even if you can still get punished if you don't know which shells you can bounce and which not.

As for not every nation having battlecruisers to implement there's nations that have been without CVs without any problemso I don't think that's a problem, some nations could have battlecruisers, others not. But yeah, I'd love to see a proper battlecruiser class in this game.

Talladega_Night · February 25, 2017

all the Battle Cruisers in the game besides Graff Spee are WW2 Refits where they had Battleships specs, Kongo, Fuso, *Amagi. They do just fine against other Battleships. Schanrhorst is not a Battle Cruiser at all. Has the armor of a BB and while Smaller caliber BB guns, are still larger then cruiser Guns. The Only Tru BC is Graff Spee with the Cruiser armor and BB guns.

*Amagi never being completed.

Trainspite · February 25, 2017

First off, BCs shouldn't and won't get their own separate designation. They will have to make do with being lumped into the BB category, such as how Light cruisers, heavy cruisers, armoured cruisers and Panzerschiffes are all in the 'cruiser' designation. But this doesn't matter since they can hold their own against BBs in game anyway.

British & German BCs should get their own branch eventually, after their respective BB lines, although getting other navies like the Marine Nationale and Regina Marina in game first is the priority hopefully. IJN BCs may also be split out from the current line at a latter date. As for what these branches could look like, this is my opinion.

Tier	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X
RN	Indefatigable	Lion	Tiger	Renown	Hood	J3 "Magnificent"	G3 "Trafalgar"	K3 "Triumph"
KM	Von der Tann	Moltke	Derfflinger	Mackensen	Ersatz Yorck "Falkenhayn"	GK 9 "Kronprinz Rupprecht"	SGK 4542 "Prinz August Willhlem"	SGK 5041 "Ulrich von Hutten"
IJN	B-41 "Shiomi"	B-40 "Myogi"	Kongo	B-59? "Shari"	B-62 "Kisokoma"	Amagi	Kii	No. 13 "Izumi"

The USN can also manage their own BC line, but that may end up the way of a German carrier line, with the significant ships being taken out for premiums, and the rest of the BC designs, some of which are fairly unique left by the wayside. In this case, Alaska and Lexington BC (renamed to Constellation to avoid the name clash).

Izmail/Borodino is the likely tier 6 in the Russian BB line, and although there other designs around, I don't see any other place for really, except in the midst of the BB tree.

As for potential premium BCs:

Royal Navy

Invincible - T3

Queen Mary T4

Courageous T4

Repulse T5/6

F3 "Bulwark" T7

Kaiserliche Marine/ Kriegsmarine

Seydlitz T4

Goeben/Yavuz T4

Lutzow T4/5

Imperial Japanese Navy

Kongo preliminary design "Ishizuchi" T4

Hiei (Stock Kongo) T4

Haruna T6

"Ashitaka" (Stock/ As designed Amagi) T7

United States Navy

Alaska T7

Lexington BC "Constellation" T7

Commonwealth (RAN)

Australia - T3

There are plenty of other designs bobbing around as well that can be used as unique premiums.

ScratxNeko · February 25, 2017

all the Battle Cruisers in the game besides Graff Spee are WW2 Refits where they had Battleships specs, Kongo, Fuso, *Amagi. They do just fine against other Battleships. Schanrhorst is not a Battle Cruiser at all. Has the armor of a BB and while Smaller caliber BB guns, are still larger then cruiser Guns. The Only Tru BC is Graff Spee with the Cruiser armor and BB guns.

*Amagi never being completed.

Lots of wrong in this post. You're subscribing to the british definition of battlecruiser while ignoring everybody else's, and not even being consistent about it. Seriously.

Graf Spee isn't even a battlecruiser. Seriously, nobody considers it one. They're essentially heavy cruisers that eschew the traditional gun caliber of heavy cruisers for having fewer barrels of a higher caliber.

German BCs were basically the opposite of british BCs, exchanging lighter guns for heavy armor while the british dropped armor in favor of speed and big guns. The Scharnhorst is very much a battlecruiser in the german sense.

Nechrom · February 25, 2017

We only have one actual BC in the game (Dunkerque) and one which could be considered one in hindsight (Graf Spee).

Even giving nations all their possible historical BCs, which we don't already have in an up-armored BB configuration, we wouldn't get much of a BC line for them.

WG has also already stated that BCs will not get their own class.

Talladega_Night · February 25, 2017

Lots of wrong in this post. You're subscribing to the british definition of battlecruiser while ignoring everybody else's, and not even being consistent about it. Seriously.

Graf Spee isn't even a battlecruiser. Seriously, nobody considers it one. They're essentially heavy cruisers that eschew the traditional gun caliber of heavy cruisers for having fewer barrels of a higher caliber.

German BCs were basically the opposite of british BCs, exchanging lighter guns for heavy armor while the british dropped armor in favor of speed and big guns. The Scharnhorst is very much a battlecruiser in the german sense.

bat·tle·cruis·er

ˈbadlˌkro͞ozər/

a large warship of a type built in the early 20th century, carrying similar armament to a battleship but faster and more lightly armored.

As of right now, only Dunny and Graff fit that definition

I am wrong about How Kongo, Fuso and Amagi are in their BB configurations? i don't think so, and yes the Graff Spee can be considered a battlecruiser. I forgot about the Dunny.

ScratxNeko · February 25, 2017

I am wrong about How Kongo, Fuso and Amagi are in their BB configurations? i don't think so, and yes the Graff Spee can be considered a battlecruiser. I forgot about the Dunny.

I said nothing about Kongo/Fuso/Amagi. Their top hulls are indeed their latest configs. I'll note that Fuso was never a battlecruiser, however, but a battleship from the start. Only Kongo and Amagi were battlecruisers later turned into fast battleships (well, Kongos were, Amagi-class became carriers). Graf Spee isn't a battlecruiser at all, only by the most generous of definitions could it be considered so. And given you're clearly using the British definition of Battlecruiser since you claim the Scharnhorst isn't one, no, it doesn't qualify. For it to qualify it would need battleship caliber. When it was built, 11" was NOT a battleship caliber. Nobody was building battleships with anything less than 15-16" at that point and rightfully so, 11" just isn't powerful enough.

Talladega_Night · February 25, 2017

you keep saying I am going by the British Definition of battle cruiser, yet you fail to give another definition. So as i am in a commonwealth country and that is the only definition i know, that is what i am going by.

I will give you the fuso, i was mistaken there.

Spuggy · February 25, 2017

I don't see why we couldn't have a full multi branching tech tree in the future.

See this one.....

Or the German tech tree

Then there is a fully branching Italian tech tree

then there is an IJN version

txtspeak · February 25, 2017

I don't see why we couldn't have a full multi branching tech tree in the future.

See this one.....

Or the German tech tree

Then there is a fully branching Italian tech tree

because these are riddled with errors.

SC and nassau would kick far too much [edited]at tier 2 and Scharnhorst is MOST DEFINATELY not equal to Bismarck

Spuggy · February 25, 2017

I'm not saying that these would be the actual tech trees. I am saying that those are examples of what could be done. It's a concept.

The tech trees should be branching and crossing over each other, just like in world of tanks.

txtspeak · February 25, 2017

I'm not saying that these would be the actual tech trees. I am saying that those are examples of what could be done. It's a concept.

The tech trees should be branching and crossing over each other, just like in world of tanks.

that is true

VC381 · February 25, 2017

The thing with battlecruisers is that the way armour works in game means the belt thickness doesn't really matter. It's not important how good or bad the armour was in real life (where the point of comparison was broadside) because in game you just angle and auto-bounce on the bow. The bow plate thickness is WG fantasy anyway so a BC can be made any tier and balanced against BBs because "angling". Amagi has a reputation for being tough despite her objectively terrible armour because of this and the fact her citadel is small (another thing WG can just make up or tweak).

So due to the lack of realism, there is no reason to separate them except flavour. I agree the nations that built lots could have a separate line, but I doubt this will be a priority. It certainly would not make a new MM category, in the same way light and heavy cruisers are lumped together all battlecruisers would be "BBs" anyway.

peoplescavalry · February 25, 2017

Er no one has mentioned my best pick as a BC in this game, that Queen of tier 4 the ichizuchi, 150 games in it and I still don't know if I have spelt it right!

Aotearas · February 25, 2017

As of right now, only Dunny and Graff fit that definition

I am wrong about How Kongo, Fuso and Amagi are in their BB configurations? i don't think so, and yes the Graff Spee can be considered a battlecruiser. I forgot about the Dunny.

Again, that is the Royal Navy definition of a battlecruiser.

It isn't the only one, though easily by far the most prolific so it's easy to get it wrong and just assume that it's the only one.

The more broad definition of a battlecruiser is that in light of the then lacking speed for dreadnought/super dreadnought class of ships, some form of sacrifice had to be made in order to enable battleships to keep up with cruisers. The RN did so by eschewing armour protection, whilst keeping the big guns. The result is the classical RN battlecruiser, big ship, big guns, but poor armour protection for its size. The RN always had a penchant for choosing firepower over protection.

The german navy however is the exact opposite. "The purpose of a ship is to stay afloat" is the maxime that german shipbuilding went with. So in order to save weight and thus make ships faster, they didn't skip on the armour, but rather on the guns, whilst keeping the armour protection. In that light, the Scharnhost ingame is a battlecruiser, german flavour.

You can say it's two different doctrines on the same subject.

It is a bit of irony however that the most prolific version and the one that saw the most ships deployed under said doctrine, never really adhered to its originally incepted purpose. Battlecruisers were never designed to engage in direct face-offs against conventional battleships, they never had the protection and in an equal exchange of firepower, the battlecruisers would always lose against battleships. Compare the battle of Jutland where the british used battlecruisers in their mainbattle line against full-fledged german battleships and suffered dramatic losses as a consequence.

The basic concept has always been to outrun anything that you can't outfight (slow battleships) and outfight anything that you can't outrun (other cruisers).

Long story short:

RN battlecruiser doctrine saw to ships with superiour firepower. See HMS Invincible.

HSF battlecruiser doctrine saw to ships with superiour protection. See SMS Von der Tann.

G01ngToxicCommand0 · February 25, 2017

you keep saying I am going by the British Definition of battle cruiser, yet you fail to give another definition. So as i am in a commonwealth country and that is the only definition i know, that is what i am going by.

I will give you the fuso, i was mistaken there.

Technically speaking the Imperial German Navy never officially had battlecruisers; they had 'Großer Kreuzer' which served a completely different task than the british battlecruisers.

The Großer Kreuzer's task was twofold: first as part of the scouting groups to provide the eyes of the Hochseeflotte and secondly, when the battle with the main enemy force(The Grand Fleet) was joined, to take their place in the battleline just like the Schlachtshiffe(transl. battleships) classes of ship and to be able to withstand the same kind of punishment and enemy fire like the latter.

The Großer Kreuzer was built with heavy armour to ensure their survival as Germany would never be able to make as large a navy as the British thus ship survival was more important than sheer firepower in order to preserve the fighting strength of the Hochseeflotte.

In short german Großer Kreuzer philosophy: Survivability>Speed>Firepower

The british battlecruisers had 3 tasks: to provide a fast and hard hitting reaction force to be used in the defence of the British Empire's colonies and sea lines of communication by chasing down commerce raiders such as cruisers and armed civilian vessels, secondly to act in a scouting role as part of the Grand Fleet and thirdly to provide a flanking force for the Grand Fleet so that when a battle was joined between the Grand Fleet and the enemy, Hochseeflotte or other navies, they would encircle the enemy fleet from the van of the Grand Fleet while the enemy fleet was preoccupied with exchanging broadsides with the british battleline in an attempt to completely encircle the enemy battlefleet.

They were never designed to take the place in the battleline as their armour was too light for that but to exploit that the enemy was already engaged with the more heavily armoured battleships in the hope that the enemy battleships would not notice them or chose not to fire at them with anything larger than secondary batteries.

In short: british Battlecruiser philosophy: Firepower>Speed>Survivability

From the British definiton of the battlecruiser the Imperial German Navy did not have battlecruisers but they were labelled as such due to a lack of a british definition of the german Großer Kreuzer type of ship. The later term 'fast battleship' would probably be more appropiate.

Aotearas · February 25, 2017

^ Way better explanation than mine.

In my defence, I just had a 9hr nightshift without break and simply can't sleep, so my brain is currently running on fumes

G01ngToxicCommand0 · February 25, 2017

^ Way better explanation than mine.

In my defence, I just had a 9hr nightshift without break and simply can't sleep, so my brain is currently running on fumes

Your's is just as fine, I wouldn't have posted mine if I had seen yours

SV_Kompresor · February 25, 2017

RN battlecruiser doctrine saw to ships with superiour firepower. See HMS Invincible.

HSF battlecruiser doctrine saw to ships with superiour protection. See SMS Von der Tann.

Which is exactly why a separate tree would never work....because some ships would basically be cruisers and others battleships (by wows standards)

VC381 · February 25, 2017

Also remember the names given to ships tend to be political and change over time.

The Royal Navy continued to use the term "battlecruiser" for the 1920s designs that were really fast battleships. My guess is if the Iowas were built in the UK there would have been a strong case to have them called battlecruisers.

The IJN wanted rid of the term because they wanted to be able to say they had 10 battleships, but in reality the Kongo class didn't receive the kind of armour upgrade to justify them being called "battleships". You can go with what the IJN called them or what everyone else still thought they were, doesn't really matter.

And this not even starting on what one nation called another nation's ships without thinking too much about it. The USN disliked the term due to the implications (see Jutland) and went to some lengths to make up a new category for their Alaska class, but everyone else calls them battlecruisers anyway.

And let's not forget the idea wasn't revolutionary, armoured cruisers were to pre-dreadnoughts what battlecruisers were to dreadnoughts. In the age of sail, large frigates were this compared to ships of the line.

For me, the most universal way to define a battlecruiser would be something like "a second class capital ship with an emphasis on speed". Of course, there are dozens of reasons for why you would want that speed and dozens more design compromises you can think of to achieve it, so this could cover almost any ship. The line is very blurred especially since you are trying to use what is basically a WWI term for a specific ship type from one nation to apply to all sorts of designs from another time period and for different requirements e.g. all the 1930s and '40s ships (built or otherwise) that are in one way or another half-way between a battleship and a cruiser, and the fact the speed gap between battleships and cruisers narrowed significantly by WWII anyway.

Ultimately the term "battlecruiser" sticks because it just sounds so freaking cool. Call whatever you like a battlecruiser, there's basically no wrong or right in this.

ColonelPete · February 25, 2017

No need for a new Branch. Nearly all BC perform fine. The ones that do not, just need a buff (Myogi is the only one which has a performance problem in my opinion). Putting them in a new line will not improve their performance.

Verence196 · February 25, 2017

We only have one actual BC in the game (Dunkerque) and one which could be considered one in hindsight (Graf Spee).

Even giving nations all their possible historical BCs, which we don't already have in an up-armored BB configuration, we wouldn't get much of a BC line for them.

WG has also already stated that BCs will not get their own class.

Just to use Aotearas and atomskytten's excellent explanation of the definitions of a battlecruiser to show why the Graf Spee/Lützow/Deutschland-class isn't one, and wouldn't have been considered one even had it been built in the battlecruiser era.

A British-type battlecruiser has battleship guns.

German-type battlecruiser has battleship armor.

Graf Spee has neither.

ghostbuster_ · February 25, 2017

Is it not time that battlecruisers are given their own Branch? We are missing a catagory of vessel that deserves its own place. Ok historically not every nation build them but the RN,USA,IJN,Kreigsmarine and Russia did. We have Amagi, Scharnhorst ect chucked in the BB line but the weaknesses become apparent when pitched against a BB. A seperate BC class would ensure that an equal no of BC's would be included in a game. It would give WG the chance to introduce ships like the Furious, Seydlitz, Borodino, Lexington and move Amagi, Fuso, ect into this branch to ensure a match for battles. I for one would to see ships like HMS Lion, Lutzow, Hood, sailing the Wg seas.

Amagi and weakness?? You have to be kidding.

Nechrom · February 25, 2017

Just to use Aotearas and atomskytten's excellent explanation of the definitions of a battlecruiser to show why the Graf Spee/Lützow/Deutschland-class isn't one, and wouldn't have been considered one even had it been built in the battlecruiser era.

A British-type battlecruiser has battleship guns.

German-type battlecruiser has battleship armor.

Graf Spee has neither.

Graf Spee has battleship guns according to any definition I know.

There isn't multiple definitions for a battlecruiser. The other definitions have other names and more often then not other purposes.

Bunching them all into one class for gameplay purposes would also make no sence since they would be wildly different from each other.

Battlecruisers?

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