JeeWeeJ's manly guide to Battleships

[JeeWeeJ]

 

Ah, a new recruit! Welcome, welcome! Please, sit down, have some brandy and make yourself comfortable.

So, you wish to become one of the big boys, eh? Be one of this small cadre of manly men who take a punch in the face and then politely ask “was that all?” Good for you dear boy!

 

Well then, let this old fart give you a few pointers…wait…I’m missing something..

 

JAMES! MORE BRANDY!!

 

Blasted personell these days, must I do everything myself?!?!

 

*glass of brandy gets refilled*

 

*sips* Aaaaah, yes, that hits the spot. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, getting punched in the face. Right, as you are well aware there are no manlier men than battleship captains. Yes, I’m quite sure there are also female battleship captains, but they have grown manly mustaches and beards due to all the manliness that radiates from our ships and are therefore to be considered honorary men. No, this is not up for discussion, this is a fact. Battleships do not discriminate when it comes to manliness.

 

Please do remember this key word: MANLY! If you repeat it often enough, you might start growing a beard. (This clean-shaven babyface you have now just will not do…)

 

Anyway, BATTLESHIPS! Aaaaah, yes, there’s power in that word! BATTLE!!!!!ship. No other class of ships can match that. “Destroyer” comes close, but is like lemonade to brandy.  What? Aircraft carriers? AIRCRAFT CARRIERS? My dear boy, let me make one thing overly clear before you utter those foul words again: PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SHOT FOR LESS. So be a good chap and NEVER EVER EVER mention those foul contraptions again. Otherwise I’d be forced to ask James to shoot you. He’s actually quite skilled with that Mauser you know?

 

In order to understand the manliness of a battleship, one has to understand it’s role on the battlefield. To be a battleship captain is like wearing clothing with “shoot me” notes all over. Sounds bad, right? Well, unfortunately for those shooting at us, we’re so manly we make Chuck Norris cry such manly tears of joy that they create craters when they hit the ground.

 

So, what steps should you take in order to raise your manliness?

Well, follow these tips and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get some hair on your chest.

 

1. Big, BIG guns
   

   Of all the ships, our guns are the manliest…or biggest, whatever word you prefer. On the same tier, we outrange everyone (except those pesky carriers… *spits*), do more damage per shell when we hit than everybody else (except other BB captains) and…JUST LOOK AT THOSE BIG GUNS! From 12” to 18.1”, they are things of beauty. But even though they are manly in the extreme, this manlyness comes at a cost. It takes a while for your manly gun crews to load them with shells of manly destruction, usually taking up to 30-ish seconds for a reload. So place your shots wisely! Unlike the other classes firing a ranging shot is a must! Fire a ranging shot, see where it lands, adjust your aim accordingly and shower your target in destructive shell-shaped manliness! Do keep in mind that these big shells have a larger spread than those tiny peas the other ships “fire” (or so they claim), RNG can be a whiny b*tch sometimes and prevent us from giving those who oppose us what they deserve.
   

    

2. Manly turrets are slow turrets
   

   Big, manly guns need equally manly turrets to house them in. Disadvantage of being the biggest (and best, did I mention that already?) is that they are HEAVY. Simple physics state that things which are heavy, must be slow. Unfortunately, physics is one of the manliest things in this universe making it resists all attempts to speed this up, so we must use our manly wits to work around this. Firing at a moving target at medium to long range will not be a problem, but trying to track a fast target at close range can be problematic. A sollution to this can be to turn your ship in the same direction your turrets are moving in in order to speed this up. Do keep in mind that this might move you into a tactically unpleasant situation. One thing one must always try to avoid is to make your turrets move from one broadside to the other. With the exception of some ships with wing turrets (like Kawachi), this will take a looooooooooong time, limiting the amount of barrels you can fire towards a target. Now this might sound girlish, but it is a wisdom that cannot be denied: CHOSE YOUR TARGETS WISELY!
   

    

3. Speaking of targets…
   

   Some lesser men, who somehow got their hands on a battleship, tend to shoot at whatever they can see. Let me tell you now that firing at a destroyer from long range is perhaps the most useless thing you can do. Your shells take time to travel towards their target and they get hit by the RNG spread-O-matic harder than getting kicked in the face by a ten stories all horse. A BIG SHELL NEEDS A BIG TARGET! So, ignore small and fast targets unless you desperately need to hit it, like in the case of a capping destroyer and your team being too unmanly to do something about it. “But what about short ranges?” I hear you ask? On short range, everything is fair game. Just make sure you lead your targets sufficiently so those girly girls get what they deserve (before they outturn your turrets, as described above).
   

    

4. Got range?
   

   Unlike other ships were are blessed AND cursed by the long range of our guns. Yes, we outrange everything with guns on the same tier. But unlike other ships, we actually have a minimum range! Our massive and manly guns are so big that they cannot be pointed down enough (aka gun depression) to fire at smaller targets on point blank range. NEVER, let me repeat that, NEVER let a ship of destroyer or cruiser size get within that minimum range. Yes, you have secondary guns for that but those pesky little ships will be able to hurt you more than you can hurt them at those ranges. And having a DD launching torpedoes at point blank range is something that…may be bad for the paintjob, if you catch my meaning.
   

    

5. No pain, no gain!
   

   Talking about pain, we can take a lot of it! We are blessed with thick skins of Krupp cemented steel (or whatever is your fancy: Vickers Face-Hardened, STS etc…) This results in us bouncing shots from lesser ships which could wreck smaller ships and the size of our manly battlewagons gives us a healthy amount of hitpoints. The only things that can seriously hurt us in one go are torpedoes, bombs from divebombers and…you guessed it! Large caliber shells from other manly men in battleships! But that is just the instant-damage, the threat from smaller ships is usually the damage over time. Due to their higher rate of fire cruisers and destroyers (if they ignore their torpedoes for a second) usually start to pummel us with high-explosive shells. These don’t do a massive amount of damage per shell, but have nasty side-effects: they knock out equipment like AA and secondary guns and even our engines…and they are the cause of the mortal enemy of all ships – fires! Luckily we have our expert repair crews handy to fix that,  but these small buggers have the tendency to cause new fires as fast as you can put them down, especially when they are at close range to you. So make sure to rid yourselves from these pests as soon as you are effectively capable of doing so.
   

    

6. I need a flyswatter!
   

   While our proud battlewagons are awesomely manly and awesomely awesome in so many ways, there is one thing in which smaller ships are, well (and I hate to say this), better. And that is maneuverability and AA. Sure, especially the USN battleships have plenty of AA, but the best defence is not getting hit at all. Torpedoes launched towards us by a destroyer don’t have to be a problem, but those pesky torpedobombers and diverbombers are the bane of the manly battleship captain. As these girly carrier captains don’t dare to take us on in a proper and civilized gunfight, they pester us with their swarms of bombers, which can be hard for us to avoid. In order to limit this threat the best thing you can do is stick together with other manly men, or those little lads in smaller ships but which can provide you with AA cover.
   

   Once you do spot a carrier in range of your mighty guns, please do remind him of your presence by showering the girly girl with high explosive shells of manliness. Putting them out of their misery is the least we can do.
   

    

7. Thou shallt not cross my T!
   

   Having your T crossed is girly speak for your foe crossing your bow so you can only use your foreward guns. This. Will. Not. Do! You should always try to prevent this situation from happening, turn with your foe so you keep all your guns pointed towards him or, in the worst case scenario, turn away from him so that -eventually- your turrets will be able to turn towards this bugger that keeps scratching your paint (and create some distance from him in the process). Your minimap is your friend, always keep an eye on your foe’s position and heading in relation to your own.
   

    

8. One last thing…
   

   It is very easy to get overwhelmed by the manliness of our ships but there is one thing I cannot stress enough – a lone battleship is a dead battleship. There is no shame in admitting that going full-rambo against the whole enemy fleet is a foolish enterprise. Fun, yes, but foolish. Glorious success comes through sticking together and destroying ones enemies with overwhelming firepower…and the massed AA fire of a group of ships comes in handy as well.

 

So, in short: get a feel of your ships (there is no shame in having to practice a few games), use rangeing shots to your advantage, pick your targets wisely, be aware of aircraft and stick together. Do this and success will follow! And success needs celebration, so… JAMES! MORE BRANDY!!!