NGTM_1R

At the time Deutschland was built the Royal Navy had no less than three ships that outclassed her in every aspect. Renown, Repulse, and Hood. This is, of course, leaving aside the possibility she would get jumped by one of the carriers. So what does that make them? This is leaving aside that the Deutschlands had no realistic hope of defeating a QE or an R-class, thus would have had to run from a fight with one of them and abandon whatever their objective might be. Indeed, it's doubtful whether a Deutschland could have defeated a pair of County-class or Pensacola-class heavy cruisers, the earliest of the treaty models in their respective nations; even a pair of Aobas might have managed. And finally, in the ultimate test, the Deutschlands' combat performance puts the lie to this. Graf Spee had to give the ring back to a pair of Leanders are River Plate; Deutschland/Lutzow herself had to do the same against a single Town-class cruiser at Barents Sea. Not even heavy cruisers. Light cruisers.

If you liked the Halloween events and their aesthetic, pick up Highfleet.

Jesus christ my dude LOGH is from the '80s and is super not paced for kids to the point its nickname among its fans is "Boring Germans In Space". This is an exceptionally ridiculous take. To even know this series is a good sign you are a minimum of 30 years old. It is niche enough, no less, that I'm halfway convinced this promotion was intended to lure me back specifically. This is not aimed at kids. Because kids do not have money. Adults have money.

That feel when Wargaming is so desperate to get you, specifically, back to the game, that they do a Boring Germans In Space crossover.

Thing is, Jingles is wrong. That's not how this works. You make money off your whales, the long-term buy-everything players. The argument that there's less to sell to them after they buy stuff is ridiculous because they are buying stuff, they are giving you money, the object is to get the money. New players who will probably not spend anything on a game can't replace the people who are desperately spending eighty bucks every time a new ship comes out from Fear Of Missing Out. Notice that Wargaming hasn't responded to this crisis with a "new players get stuff free" drive, trying to punch up their recruitment numbers. They've responded to it by sending out offers of a free Tier 9 to people who've been out of the game long enough that they might not know what's going on. They're trying to get whales back, not trying to make new ones, because most of your whales, the really committed people, will get in early and slowly bleed out.

"look you can get under half of most of what I quoted in a year of absolutely dedicated playing hope you don't get sick in the middle of a global pandemic and are willing to play for two years straight and a little extra" C'mon son, that's not a defense, that's just further illustration of how screwed it is. I'm proud of you WG. You finally reached CCP Games levels of player rage. I always knew you had it in you. I opted to uninstall about three weeks ago because...well, I don't play this game enough to keep it having space on my hard drive, and I'm just basking in the schadenfreude now. It's like that feeling when your ex really let themselves go later; whoa, dodged a bullet there.

This is the actual problem. Public test was mostly done against bots, not players, and bots are useless for testing something like this.

Wargaming suggested, back before Alpha started, they actually had enough data for up to five lines of US battleships. It is quite possible a second battleship line might cap with 18" guns.

South Dakota was combat ineffective by 5"-to-8" fire. Her fire control couldn't talk to her guns and a loss of electrical power is a major casualty with numerous secondary effects. The actual action report on the battle makes the specific point that heavy cruiser fire was able to render South Dakota ineffective. The most important damage done to Atlanta was actually done by San Francisco; Hiei had no part of it and was entirely ineffective against Atlanta, with her effectiveness against San Francisco being due entirely to the short range allowing accurate point-blank fire from her turret optics rather than her (unable to communicate with the guns) director. Flat-trajectory superstructure hits happen at much longer ranges than 2000 yards; this is back to damage done to Bismarck. We could also go on to point out Yamashiro's fate too; the majority of shell hits she likely took were cruiser calibers. The characterization of the action in the Battle of the Barents Sea is entirely wrong; the German force was not operating as a solo merchant raider group but a pair of heavy cruisers with destroyer escort seeking to attack and destroy a convoy in conventional battle. They were in turn ambushed in the polar night by Sheffield who managed to damage Admiral Hipper and force Hipper to call for help from the destroyers and Lutzow, which got one of the destroyers killed and Lutzow forced to disengage by accurate and voluminous 6" gunfire. And the most important point you are overlooking is that we have been discussing battleships being rendered ineffective by cruiser gunfire/gunfire that did not pierce their armor...and these were much larger, much heavier ships, where a shellhit is less likely to land upon something important. Schleswig-Holstein is 14218 tons full-load, 22.2m beam, 127.6m long. By comparison, a Myoko-class cruiser is 14980 tons full load, 204m long, and 17m beam. Even a York-class ship is 10350 tons full load, 160m long, and 17m beam. South Dakota is 207.26m long, with a 32.97m beam, and a full load weight of 45233 tons. Almost double the length, half again as wide, three times the displacement and more. A lot more real estate for shells to fall into without hitting something critical immediately or for fires to be contained in without being on top of something. Raw size has a big effect on the risk to critical systems for hits, and Schleswig-Holstein is not a big ship. Her risks are much higher.

The problem with this viewpoint is that it in no way matches actual combat experience in WW2 surface actions. The inability to penetrate the armor is not actually a hindrance to rendering the ship combat ineffective, as demonstrated by what happened to Hiei, South Dakota, Bismarck, and others. Once it has fires on deck and no working fire-control then the game is over and the opposing cruiser can close in and pound on the target as it pleases. It's also wrong to count the casemate guns in this situation as they have little in the way of fire-control or stabilization compared to the primary armament and are intended for very-close-range engagements, under ten thousand yards despite their theoretical maximum ranges. Engaging at 20k yards or even 15k yards with them isn't going to produce a noticeable number of hits compared to the main battery. And a WW1 predread design is going to be an easier target than a WW2 heavy cruiser at 20k yards; it's slower and does not maneuver as well. Possibly? Schleswig-Holstein's output on its main battery is very low due to the fact it only has four guns, lower even than the Deutschlands, and the Deutschlands were known to find themselves in situations where they had to run away from 6" gun cruisers that had established fire superiority; Sheffield did it alone and Ajax and Achilles managed it together. I would give it slightly better than even odds against a York, a County-class ship, or a Furutaka/Aoba, but 50/50 against a Pensacola or Myoko and less than a half chance of winning a battle against a Takao/Mogami or any US heavy cruiser class from New Orleans to Des Moines. Its chances of winning drop precipitously if it has to fight them at night where ranges are shorter, rapid fire counts more, and Japanese types can employ their torpedoes effectively. Note this is about who has to disengage (or try to) more than about who gets sunk. In almost all cases the initiative on whether to fight the battle further lies with the cruiser.

This was very much abnormal for pre-dreads though. Schesweig-Holstein in 1939 is not a good example of a predreadnought battleship. Most of them have significantly less gun elevation and use considerably worse projectiles and powder throughout their careers. Even WW1-era battlecruisers (or battleships) like Derfflinger, unreconstructed, would be outranged by the average 8" cruiser of 1940. (Indeed, Derfflinger and her sisters' maximum range is 10k yards shorter than that of most USN heavy cruisers and actually about the same range they would normally consider comfortable combat range.) To be honest this entire setup has been framed very badly to produce an outcome that could be extrapolated to the general; Exeter is among the weakest 8" cruiser designs and strongest possible predread has been chosen.

Not without significant changes. That said, it was at least considered in Scout Cruiser 1921, which was intended to counter the Hawkins-class. A widened Omaha hull would have carried two twin 8" turrets. (For reference, ingame Phoenix is basically the Scout Cruiser 1919 design and Omaha is Scout Cruiser 1920.) The design was not pursued and eventually evolved into Pensacola after more work.

One of the major concerns here is deck space and a lot of these ships just don't have it. If they have wing turrets or Q turrets, forget it; you'll never make a decent modernization to WW2 standards because there's nowhere to put light AA or DP secondaries without them probably getting beaten up every main battery salvo. Lion might be the only exception, for two reasons: her large after deckhouse and the British developing the 4" "Between Decks" mount pretty much specifically for replacing casemate guns like those in her after deckhouse and forward superstructure with useful DP guns. Whether actually rebuilding Lion is a useful exercise is another question, but scattering 4" BD on the forward superstructure and the aft deckhouse would give her a modern secondary battery and she'd have room to put some light AA without risking wrecking it every time she used her main battery. New oil engines and boilers could hopefully reduce her stacks to one(need more space!) and improve her speed. A turret rebuild for better elevation would improve her gun range. Rearmoring or adding bulge is a lot more tricky and gets to the heart of Lion's problems but even just a couple of inches of deck and no improvements of belt and you could easily cast the new Lion in the same role as an Alaska or B.65; a heavy cruiser killer. People believed that was a useful role at the time.

Not exactly. This was more a problem on cruisers and battleships with their 5" amidships but it was a noted problem than 20mm and 40mm crews tended to get beat up by extended firing of the 5" battery and there are at least a few cases of diagnosed concussions. The 20mms in particular had it rough since a lot of the time they'd just get stuck wherever there was room enough to play cards, regardless of the arcs of bigger weapons. It was less of a problem on ships with open 5" mounts since the 5" crews were also subject to the effect and tended to moderate their firing rate as it started to become a problem.

Aside from the fact he was obviously preparing the country for war? His personal promises to and regard for Churchill? FDR being a noted Anglophile? The fact he approved an undeclared war in the Atlantic against German U-boats in early 1941? The United States and Britain having coordinated their plans for the war before the US actually entered it? FDR's personal conversations with people like William Stephanson expressing his desire to bring the US into the war with Germany directly and his willingness to share classified material with the BSC? His repeated offers of covert and overt help to the British before US entry to the war, including lend-lease, the cash-and-carry policy which only the UK could actually achieve, the destroyers for bases deal? There is a great deal of evidence for this proposition.