thehelmsman

Just so. It's the North Carolina as ordered, before the escalator clause from the London treaty was invoked. --Helms

This would be fantastic and I'm all for it. WG, please do this. WV '44/Maryland as an optional Colorado C-hull refit would give that ship some badly-needed love. I'm actually cool with using Utah as the tech tree ship to represent the Florida class, owing to its involvement in the Pearl Harbor attack (albeit having already been converted to a target ship years before). --Helms

Increase speed to 26 knots and recompute. --Helms

Speak for yourself. I'm STOKED to the see the 1920 SoDak and a hypothetical evolution of it representing what the US might have built if the Washington naval treaty hadn't ended the dreadnought arms race and it had continued through the 20s and into the 30s. And I'd actually like to see WG go even further and flesh the line out with tier 3-7 offerings that fill the gaps left by the omission of so many classes of ships that were actually built. And I'm sure I'm not alone. I'd much rather have this than more fantasy Russian e-peen ships. --Helms

Seems about right. It's essentially the continued evolution of USN standard-type dreadnought design philosophy, taken through the 1920s and into the 1930s. In other words, what we might have built if the Washington treaty hadn't been signed, and those ships went on to fight through WWII. --Helms

Oh, I agree with you. Those are some reasons why you might buy it, but they really REALLY need to buff it significantly in order to justify the price. --Helms

Take your pick: 1.) It's gorgeous 2.) It fills a gap left by the omission of the Tennessee class 3.) It represents the only late-war configuration of a standard-type battleship we have in the game at the moment or are likely to get in the foreseeable future 4.) It was actually built and fought in WWII Unfortunately these are about the only things it has to recommend it, as it is diabolically bad in terms of actual gameplay. I will never understand why they thought it was necessary to slap California with a 34-second reload when it wasn't even that great with a 30-second reload. It's slow, it has bad firing arcs that make it very vulnerable to return fire, and 14" shells ricochet off everything that isn't giving you flat broadside. --Helms

Delaware? Utah? Nevada? Refit Pennsylvania? There's plenty of ships to fill the whole branch, and many of them were actually built. I am LOVING the look of Kansas, even if 23 knots is gonna be really bad at tier 8. It won't be competitive, but a 23-knot doom snail could still be lots of fun with that much firepower. Nice to see the OG South Dakota from 1920 put in, especially in a late-war configuration! I'm interested to see how the original 14"-gunned North Carolina fits as well, since it's pretty much a direct contemporary with the likes of Scharnhorst and KGV. --Helms

Ladies and mentalgen, today we got this announcement. Hot damn, Kansas (which appears to be a modernized refit of the 1920 South Dakota which was cancelled after the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty) looks sexy! But where are Delaware, Florida/Utah, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee? --Helms

Missed this the first time around, but Zoup is very much an "Everyman" player and his style, his perspective, and his content reflect it. It doesn't make him inaccurate, his values and what he wants from the game are different from many of the other CCs who are more competitive-focused. For example, his review of the new California release indicated that he was one of the few CCs that didn't write the ship off as a steaming pile of hot garbage, because he had fun in it despite its limitations and thought other people might be able to have fun in it, too. Flamu is probably at the extreme of the 'competitive focus' end of the scale, and, for all his prowess and the high value I and many others place on a lot of his opinions regarding balance and the overall direction of the game, he can be a jerk, some times. I can, too, for that matter. --Helms

Still relevant, though, because New York is still a dog compared to most of the other tier 5 battleships. Only Texas is worse, and maybe Bretagne gets close-ish. --Helms

Yeaaaaaap. I was hoping the nerf would be rolled back and this ship would be at least somewhat competitive, and I am STILL struggling to not buy it, because I absolutely adore the USN standard battleships and their refit configurations in particular (obviously I'm not alone!).... but ever since they arbitrarily slapped the legacy mid-tier USN reload on it (which NM frankly needs to have buffed), everybody knew it was gonna be a turd. Thanks for that, WG. This could have been a fun ship and a must-buy, but nope. This one will undoubtedly get buffs down the road (in a couple of years, once WG gets around to it), and I think I have to force myself not to buy it until it does. Good work as always, LWM! You are a trooper. --Helms

Excellent work as always, LWM! --Helms

Historical accuracy was stretched with the mid-tier Germans and then went completely out the window with the French. The precedent having been set, they then decided to simply ignore any semblance of balance with every line introduced since, culminating with the USSR battleships. --Helms

This. Battleships are fine. Cruisers are fine-ish. It's destroyers that are suffering right now, owing to the preponderance of threats they face for which there is little or no counterplay. --Helms