AirBear8

Hadn't gotten the container from my Kaga yet so I took her into Co-op last night, it was late and I didn't want to risk a random battle. Only a couple of human players, before long it was just me and the enemy CV. I set course for the enemy cap while swatting away attacks. Finally finished the enemy CV with my secondary guns. 49 planes shot down, mission complete.

I've done about 4 random battles now in the Smolensk. So-so results so far, I'm getting 50-100K damage. Best team ranking was 5th on a losing team. Got a post-mortem kill on a Kremlin with my torps. Still unsure about keeping the range module (19.2km) or switching to reload module. I am getting a fair number of shots outside 16k but unless I get a fire they're not doing a whole lot of damage, even with IFHE.

That's what I thought but wasn't sure. Thanks.

Just dumped enough coal to get the Smolensk today. I have enough left over to buy an upgrade, but I don't see anything that would help, at least I don't think so. The Smoke Gen Mod 1 says "+30% to the action time of the Smoke Generator Consumable" and also "-5% to smoke dispersion time". If I understand this correctly (big if) does that mean you can lay a longer smoke cloud sailing along at 1/4 throttle but it dissipates 5% faster? What I'd like (I think most of us would) is a smoke you can hide in that lasts longer.

2nd Co-op battle was better for fires, probably because it was done at closer ranges than the 1st battle. 236 HE hits and 7 fires. Or maybe it was the small animal I sacrificed to the RNG Gods. Damage was a lot less than 1st battle but I did get 1 cap, wound up grossing 89,133 credits and netting 66,922. That's not a bad return on an 8 min battle.

Took the Smolensk into the training room for a bit, then into Co-op. All human players, I came in 3rd with 112K damage and took very little damage myself. Running all premium consumables I grossed 133K credits and netted 70K. That's with the included camo and 20% boost signal flag. Fire chance was disappointing. I scored 418 HE hits but only got 5 fires. Here's what I'm using for my 19pt Captain's skills: Line 1: PT Line 2: AR, LS Line 3: BFT, SI Line 4: IFHE, AFT I've got the max range at 19.2km, I can hit BB's at that range but 90% of the shells don't pen. Closer up I can get more like 50% pen. Cruisers pen OK, I didn't get a chance to land any long range shots on them yet. Wondering if I should switch BFT for DE. With both signal flags I have an 8% fire chane right now. DE would make it 10%.

Interesting, I just returned to the game 2 months ago after taking an 18 month break so missed out on that commander. With the coal boost I got from ranking out I'll still have around 15K after buying the Smo. I have the Hockey Player guy, he's my CV Commander on the Midway and Saipan but I have another standard 19 point Commander I could replace him with. If I put him on the SMO and took SE as a 3rd line skill that'll boost my hit points by 4000, a 12% increase over the 32,400 base. But to run 4th line skills of CE, IFHE, and AFT that leaves only 1 skill for Line 2 and 3 so I'd have to give up Superintendent. That means only 2 smoke charges with premium consumables. Not sure 4K would make that much difference except on DD's. I use him on my CV because the planes get a few extra hit points.

I'm having 2nd thoughts on getting the Thunderer vs. Smo. I have 3 T10 BB's that I need to grind the legendary modules for (Yammy, Montana, G.K.) so really need to be running them vs. a new ship. Also, last night I hit rank 1 in the Sprint Rank battles. I did it almost exclusively with the Belfast running that ship in 35 of 39 battles with a 54.29% winrate and average damage of 58,731. On my losses over half the time I kept my star. I got "High Caliber" 75% of the time. Now the Smo doesn't have radar but honestly I didn't need the radar that much in ranked. I had entire battles where I never needed to use it, there were a number of battles with no DD's. Correct me if I'm wrong but won't the Smo's playstyle be similar to the Belfast? Maybe I'm not as bad at CL's as I thought, or maybe the Belfast is just that OP Edit: I just checked my stats on the Kutuzov, I've done pretty well with it in 98 random battles with a 53% winrate and high "personal rating" and slightly above average damage.

I watched some CC Youtube reviews on the Thunderer. The ship doesn't get the super-heal the Conqueror does. But it does have a very fast rudder shift, in fact one CC reviewer suggested using the 40% rudder shift module. That gets the shift well under 10 seconds. Reload can be brought down to 22 seconds (I think). Below I'll post a version 8.8 review. I like my Montana, more so than the Yammy. More nimble, much faster traverse (John Doe helps).

Yea, I looked at the Yoshino but it's limited to long range sniping, no armor to speak of. The Smo is a great ship --if--- and that's a big IF....you can play light cruisers well. I can't. I'd have to keep it in Coop until I learned how to better use islands for cover and such stuff. But I also need to run my Yammy and Montana some, it's been a while. The Yammy has accuracy on par with the Thunderer I think. Have to see how I do running T10 BB's.

I have enough coal to get either ship now with the coupon. My clan mates are saying get the Smolensk. My stats are much better on BB's than any other class of ship. I rarely run my Atlanta or Minotaur because I'm not good at keeping thin skinned CL's alive for long. I am doing well in Ranked Sprint with the Belfast thou. The last Clan Wars (T8) I ran the Prinz Eugen or Baltimore, both have some armor protection. I did not do well when trying the Bayard, Irian, or Cleveland. I've watched Youtube reviews of both these coal ships and I'm just not sure which one to get. Now for Coop I've heard the Smolensk is better credit earner just because the battles go so fast a BB doesn't have time to do much. So I'd like to hear from anyone who has run either ship in Coop and also in random battles. The smoke on the Smolensk maxes out at 3 charges I think even with premium and Superintendent, the Belfast gives one more. But my Belfast has been torn up in Ranked while sitting in smoke just from many ships firing blind into the smoke. Still have a 60%+ win rate with it thou. The Thunderer is supposed to be very accurate but squishy. I can aim and shoot well but watching the map and the overall tactical situation are my weak points. In the tech tree I have Yamato, Montana, & G.K. I have the T8 French and have researched but don't plan to buy the Monarch. I'm sitting on 1.3M FreeXp so plan go straight to the Lion, although if I buy the Thunderer I may just call it quits on the UK BB line and not get the Lion or Conquerer. Thanks for any insights.

Those are some impressive scores in KW with the Ark Royal. I've only run it once in KW because I'm grinding a Ryujo. Those torp bombers are very good, my best KW damage was 185K and all I used were the TB. I didn't try to run up the damage with the Ark Royal because I was experimenting with the different plane types. I could get 1 or 2 bomb hits on DD's which is nice to know for resetting caps in random or even coop battles. Gives another option besides running attack planes. I had a bit of trouble landing all 3 torps with the AR, whereas I can usually get both torps on target with the Ryujo.

I concur with what's already been stated about IJN being best for Ops battles. In Killer Whale I've gotten 180K damage with the Ryojo. As for T8 CV's in T10 matches, it's possible to do well but you have to be very careful. Use "slingshot" and other tricks. I have side panels with ship stats including AA strength. The other day it took me 4 battles to get a win in Shokaku but I did well in the losses, I'll attach screenshots. Also, in my Kaga I've been the "best loser" in a T10 match. My win rate in Randoms is much better with the Lexington but I seem to do better on damage and XP with the Shokaku.

Yep, that makes it easy then. How about the Kaga? It's still there. I just got the Ryujo 2 days ago and really like it, mostly for the torp planes. Almost have it fully upgraded already. I've already scored a number of Citadels with the AP bombs. And the Hosho gave me my best ever T4 CV battle, 103K damage and was last ship alive. The XP from that battle let me upgrade to Ryujo. I only have a 14 pt Captain available for IJN CV's vs. 19 pt for USA. I've also got the T6 UK CV but I'm not terribly impressed with it and I've heard bad things about the T8 UK CV. I'll probably get the Ark Royal when/if it comes out because I play a lot of T6 Operations Battles and they are VERY lucrative when you're with a team that knows what to do. I run with teams from the ingame operations channel and later at night with teams on a discord server that's just for Ops battles. The guys on discord train those new to Ops battles and they almost always get 5 stars. And the Graf Zeppelin is still in the shop but I don't know much about it and I'd have to look to see what Captain I could spare. 6 weeks ago I came back to the game after 18 months doing other stuff. I really like the new CV play style. Before I gave up because I could not multitask well enough to manage multiple squadrons. My Saipan just sat at the dock rusting.

I'm very close to upgrading from Ranger to Lexington. I already have the Saipan back from when it was a T7. I finally got around to doing some random battles in it tonight and wow....T10 battle I was pretty useless, tried to find someone with weak AA by themselves but the enemy team was smart. Even a Roon wrecked my planes. And I've got a 19 point Captain. Got a lot of spotting thou and ranked in the middle of the team. Even top tier it was tough but I did fairly well on damage. Since I have the Saipan and will soon get the Lex, is there any advantage the Enterprise has over the Lexington? Other than the advantages of a premium that is. I want to get the Midway ASAP so will be playing my CV's a lot. Thanks for any info.