40902nd

In the late nineteen-teens, the USN conducted an exercise where one force of dreadnought battleships (BLUE) would try to prevent two forces of pre-dreadnoughts (RED) from linking up. BLUE failed to not only to prevent the forces of RED from linking up, but even from finding RED within the search area. The cause of this was heavy weather and the effects it had on the destroyer force which BLUE used to try and find RED. It was realized that while destroyers could outrun any other ship during calm weather, this was not the during rougher sea states. During the exercise, the destroyers only managed around 9 kts, where even the older pre-dreadnoughts, with their lower freeboards, could easily maintain 15 kts. It was also observed during an earlier exercise that in even rougher seas, the destroyers had to leave the search area for fear of floundering (something that would be seen in action in WWII). The obvious solution to this was to use larger ships for scouting. The ships developed during the design study were initially designed with either ten 6-inch guns or four 12-inch guns, with later designs even being given 14 or 16-inch guns and most were designed for a speed of 35 kts. While no ships were built from these designs, they did lay the foundation for the Omaha-Class. Sticking to the USN naming convention for cruisers, these ships are named for US cities. Aside from the Albuquerque, which is the start of this left turn on the USN cruiser branch, the ships are named after towns that have Court House in their name, as I am sure that they, and the line as a whole, will be judged harshly. As a line, these ships will be fast, all sharing the same speed of 35 kts. The Tier VI-VIII ships also have no belt armor, as they were designed to be completely unarmored. The Battle Scouts, that is the scouts with Battleship main armament, could be classified in two ways during the 1919 study: the first by armament (2x2 12", 2x1 14", 2x2 14", and 2x2 16") and the second being by armor (none, 4" belt, and 8" belt). The 'Court House' Classes are drawn from this portion of the study, where Design 115 was from a bit earlier. As these ships were designed to fulfill the function of destroyers, I have largely given them destroyer consumables, like American Destroyer smoke and a slightly upgraded Engine Boost. The ships were equipped to carry spotting aircraft, which is reflected in their consumables, and the Heavy Repair Party is used because these ships will eat a lot of citadel damage, especially at tiers VI-VIII. Note: The full displacement of these ships is derived from the weight charts, by calculating the various stores that are listed at 2/3rd, multiplying them by 1.5, and then adding up the other weights. They do not reflect the proposed modernization that I have given them and the health in parenthesis is what the health would be using this approximate full displacement, which could assist in balancing. Tier VI Battle Scout 115 Albuquerque-Class Displacement: 12,600t normal (13,956t full, approx.) Health:33,600 (36,250) Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 16mm Main Deck: 16mm Barbettes: 152mm Turret Face: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 25mm Length: 720’ (219.46m) Beam: 59’ (17.98m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 62,500 (approx between 93,750 and 125,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.0s Turning Circle: 710m Detectability By Air/Sea: 6.6km/12.2km Main Armament 2x2 305mm/50 Mk.7 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 14.3 km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 305mm HE Max Damage: 4,200 Fire Chance: 22.0% Shell Pen: 51mm Muzzle Velocity: 884 m/s 2 – 305mm AP Max Damage: 8,300 Muzzle Velocity: 884 m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 152mm/50 Mk.8 on a Mk.10 mount Reload: 10.0s Max Damage: 2,100 Fire Chance: 7.0% Penetration: 25mm Range: 5.0km Muzzle Velocity: 853 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 4x1 76mm/50 Mk.22 on a single mount Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 21 Range: 3.5km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Heavy Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 118s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier VII Battle Scout 118 Appomattox Court House-Class Displacement: 14,350 (~15,752) Health: 37,000 Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 13mm Main Belt: 16mm Upper Belt: 16mm Main Deck: 16mm Barbettes: 25mm Turret Face: 25mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 25mm Length: 720’ (219.46m) Beam: 69’ (21.03m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 62,500 (approx between 93,750 and 125,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.2s Turning Circle: 720m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 305mm/45 Mk.5 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 15.6km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 305mm HE Max Damage: 4,100 Fire Chance: 20.0% Shell Pen: 51mm Muzzle Velocity: 823 m/s 2 – 305mm AP Max Damage: 8,100 Muzzle Velocity: 823m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 127mm/25 Mk.19 on a Mk.19 mount Reload: 4.5s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 5.6km Muzzle Velocity: 657 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 7x1 127mm/25 Mk.19 on a Mk.19 mount 6x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 20x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 74 Flak Damage: 1,330 Continuous Damage: 74 Range: 4.8 km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 175 Range: 3.5 km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0 km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Heavy Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 121s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier VIII Battle Scout 124 Charlotte Court House-Class Displacement: 15,500t normal (19,875t full, approx.) Health: 39,200 (47,500) Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 25mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 27mm Turret Face: 25mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 27mm Citadel Athwartship: 27mm Citadel Roof: 27mm Length: 760’ (231.65m) Beam: 71’ (21.64m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 64,000 (approx between 96,000 and 128,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.6s Turning Circle: 710m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 356mm/45 Mk 8 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 14.3 km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 356mm HE/HC Mk22 Max Damage: 5,000 Fire Chance: 30.0% Shell Pen: 59mm Muzzle Velocity: 834 m/s 2 – 356mm AP Mk16 Max Damage: 10,300 Muzzle Velocity: 792 m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount Reload: 3.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 7x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount 6x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 20x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 5 Flak Damage: 1,540 Continuous Damage: 100 Range: 5.8km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 200 Range: 3.5km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 200 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 124s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier IX Battle Scout 125 King and Queen Court House-Class Displacement: 19,500t normal (21,671 full, approx.) Health: 46,800 (51,000) Armor Torpedo Protection: 7% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 102mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 38mm Turret Face: 38mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 38mm Length: 760’ (219.46m) Beam: 77’ (23.47m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 76,500 (approx. between 114,750 and 153,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.8s Turning Circle: 740m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 356mm/50 Mk.11 in a turret Reload: 25.0s Range: 16.5km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.05σ 1 – 356mm HC/HE Mk22 mod 1 Max Damage: 4,750 Fire Chance: 22.0% Shell Pen: 59mm Muzzle Velocity: 861m/s 2 – 356mm AP Mk16 mod 1 Max Damage: 9,500 Muzzle Velocity: 823m/s Secondary Armament 6x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount Reload: 3.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792m/s 3x2 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.32 mount Reload: 6.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 6x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount 3x2 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.32 mount 12x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 25x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 5 Flak Damage: 1,610 Continuous Damage: 100 Range: 5.8km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 350 Range: 3.5km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 50% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 127s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier X Battle Scout 131 Washington Court House-Class Displacement: 20,500t normal (22,320t full, approx.) Health: 48,750 (52,200) Armor Torpedo Protection: 7% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 102mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 38mm Turret Face: 38mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 38mm Length: 760’ (219.46m) Beam: 77’ (23.47m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 76,500 (approx. between 114,750 and 153,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 9.2s Turning Circle: 720m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 406mm/50 Mk.2 in a turret Reload: 25.0s Range: 16.5km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.05σ 1 – 406mm HE/HC Max Damage: 5,700 Fire Chance: 36.0% Shell Pen: 68mm Muzzle Velocity: 853m/s 2 – 406mm AP Mark 3 Max Damage: 12,600 Muzzle Velocity: 853m/s Secondary Armament 6x1 127mm/54 Mk.16 on a Mk.39 mount Reload: 4.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 7.3km Muzzle Velocity: 808m/s 3x2 127mm/64 Mk.16 on a Mk.41 mount Reload: 6.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 7.3km Muzzle Velocity: 808m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 6x1 127mm/54 Mk.16 on a Mk.39 mount 3x2 127mm/64 Mk.16 on a Mk.41 mount 12x2 76.2mm/50 Mk.22 on Mk.33 mount 25x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 7 Flak Damage: 1,680 Continuous Damage: 150 Range: 6.0km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 475 Range: 4.0km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 50% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 127s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft

It is the same matchmaker, it just loosens the criteria as the queue drags on. Think of Co-Op, where there is a cut-off after 30 seconds or how when the queue is dead, they will through people into smaller games.

@BrushWolf Which is why I say that it can be discarded as times increase. Matchmaker already loosens requirements to account for slower queue times.

@Navalpride33 I think you are missing the fundamental idea, here. This is not necessarily a user-facing addition, other than possibly what is on your ship when you are selecting it. It is a means for the matchmaker to build teams. Also, nerfing all ships won't solve the problem this is looking to fix, unless you make everything bland and vanilla. Graf Spee is a vastly different playstyle than a Leander, as it should be, unless you just want everyone one to play the exact same ship.

Well, the idea is for the tag system to be for use when the servers are more active and the queues are already short. That's what I meant why I was talking about priorities, though I realize now that I was rather vague on that point. The idea is to have this be a lowest level of the matchmaker, and the first to be discarded when the queue time starts to grow. I think it'd be fair to say that this scheme could be discarded after about 30 seconds or so, depending on how granulated the priority scale is. The sample tags above are also just that: samples. An example of a low-priority tag would be like a Battleship with the [Sensors] tag, while [Dreadnought] would be a high priority tag, since a Hydro or Radar battleship is a nice to have, but having 2 slow battleships on one side and 2 fast battleships on the other gives a lop-sided advantage to one side. Another point that I forgot to mention is that the tags are pooled. So a Stalingrad and Smolensk would be equivalent to Puerto Rico and Jinan (as illustrated below). The main idea isn't just to have the same tags on each side, but to have the same number of tags as well, if possible. This way, each team has the same capabilities, but not necessarily the same ships.

@BrushWolf I fail to see how this has any baring on the discussion on hand. This is a complete non sequitur as this is purely a discussion about ships. This idea is not in opposition to skill-based matchmaking. It is not mutually exclusive. If you feel that it is, then please say so.

We all know that not all ships are created equal, even when they are nominally in the same category. Des Moines and Jinan are both cruisers, but don't balance against each other. The same can be said for any number of various combination. How many times have you gone into battle where your team had all Light Cruisers, and the enemy had all Large Cruisers? Or all the radar got stacked on one team? One solution, which is what I am proposing here, is to add tags to ships. These are additional flags for the Matchmaker to look at when building a team. For those who thing that this will bog the Matchmaker down, I believe this should be the least important and first to be discarded if it is not possible to create a balanced team. The priority would be Tier > Classification > Tags, with tags having the option to be prioritized within themselves (ie: it is more important to split Battlecruisers into separate teams than it is for Radar Battleships). Here are some sample tags that I thought of: Battleships Battlecruiser/Fast Battleship – Base speed of 30kts or faster Dreadnought – Base speed of 25kts or slower Brawler – Designed for engagements within secondary range Long-Range – Designed for engagements at 17.5km or greater Smoke – Can mount a smoke consumable Sensors – Can mount either hydro or radar Cruisers Large Cruisers – Gun caliber > 240mm Heavy Cruisers – Gun caliber between 181mm and 240mm Light Cruisers – Gun caliber between 150mm and 180mm Anti-Aircraft Cruisers – Gun caliber < 150mm Hydro-less – Cannot mount hydro Radar – Can mount radar Destroyers Heavy Gun Destroyer – Gun caliber 150mm or greater Gunboat Destroyer – Gun focused destroyer with gun caliber < 150mm Torpedo-boat Destroyer – Torpedo focused destroyer Torpedo-less – Destroyer cannot mount torpedo tubes Smokeless – Destroyer cannot mount smoke Boost-less – Destroyer cannot mount any engine boost Sensors – Can mount either hydro or radar Repair Party – Can mount repair party For an example, Stalingrad would have the following tags: [Large Cruiser][Radar][Hydro-less]

Currently, I am toying with a couple of USN Superbattleships, specifically Tillman IV-2 for Vermont and one of the Maximum Battleships from 1934. While working on that, I'm also thinking about throwing in either Tillman II or IV, because Hextuple turrets make me laugh.

I think you might end up taxing WG's servers, since they don't want to upgrade them. Another idea would be to split Co-Op into two: An Easy and Hard mode, where the former uses the current AI and the latter uses Scenerio Battle AI (or some other form of improved AI). If they want to get fancy with it, they can even tweak the economy of the Hard Mode a bit, to compensate for the extra time. I'd play it with or without the extra compensation, though.

As Behemoth is a land-dwelling mythological creature, might I suggest it's waterborne equivalent, Leviathan? Also, iirc, the maximum amount of horsepower you can safely put through a propeller shaft without destroying it is ~70,000 horsepower (do correct me if I am wrong). So, that give a guestimated shp max of 420,000, which about 50% more than that on USS US, while displacing a little more the 6 times as much water on a design more than half a century older. Ya, no. Also, what is up with that funnel placement? Why are the boilers so far forward? Based on the looks of that thing, if it really was designed by Vice Admiral Hidetaro Kaneda, it is obvious that someone had described to him in passing what a warship looked like, and he was very interested in maybe seeing one for himself one day. As for the H-45, it's obviously the result of a wehraboo, ah, 'self-pleasuring' one's self with the blueprints of an H-44 and positing it to the internet. It has all the historical realism and thought as a Tillman X. Zipang at least has the benefit of being designed by an actual naval commander. Further, the Schwere Gustav had a reload rate of 30-45 MINUTES. Damage (based of Fr0ty's formula) would be 30,300 for AP and 7,850 with HE, with a ~250% fire chance. As for the secondaries, the 24cm died with the Kaiserliche Marine. The Kriegsmarine produced either 20.3cm (8-inch) or 28cm (11-inch) guns. They toyed with the idea of 30.5cm (12-inch) guns, but didn't that was for the P-Class, and progressed even less than that ship design. So designs even had 33cm (13-inch) guns, but those were inherited from the takeover of France. As for 'being designed by Hitler himself', Hitler ordered the surface fleet scrapped so that all production could be focused on submarines (this is rescinded, but not in time to save Gneisenau). H-41 was the last serious Battleship design in that series. H-42 to -44 were the German equivalent of the USN Maximum Battleship, a thought experiment, not an actual proposal. If someone told you H-45 was a real design, they lied to you. If you just found it, you found someone's fan fic. If you made up the backstory, you lied to us. World of Warships has just started introducing 'Superships'. It'll be another 5 years or so before WG starts looking at SuperOmegaUltraShips like these.

I found mention of it in "U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History" by Norman Friedman, on page 61, left-hand side, last paragraph. If you are interested in USN ships, I highly suggest trying to pick up any in the series that peeks your interest, though they can be a bit pricy. I have the Cruiser and Battleship books, with Destroyers, Carriers, and Subs prior to 1945 on the way. The following is from the next paragraph, on the top left of the same page. --- Japanese Gunboat Destroyers, USN Heavy Cruisers (Tier 6), British Heavy Cruisers, ect. But I get what you are talking about. Destroyers start at Tier II and Battleships start at Tier III (except for Italy at Tier IV). You can really look at this as just another cruiser branch. I think only adding a tier 4 would be viable (read below). The main issue with using the earlier armored cruisers is their age, speed, and guns. The Pennsylvania-Class cruisers could work as a tier 4 with a fantasy engine refit (22-kts in real life), as they only had 2x2 8-in guns, but USS Brooklyn had 4x2 8-in, with one each fore and aft and 2 on the wings, meaning you would have a 6-gun broadside. USS New York had a similar loadout, except it only had single guns on the wings, and USS Maine had 2x2 10-in. Also, the oldest ship currently in-game that I know of is USS Albany, which was commissioned in 1900. ARC-1 USS Maine was commissioned in 1895 and would be in service for 3 years before exploding and causing the Spanish-American War. ARC-2 USS New York was commissioned in 1893 and went through 2 name changes before being decommissioned in 1933, struck from the register in 1938 and scuttled in 1941 to prevent capture by the Japanese. ARC-3 USS Brooklyn was commissioned in 1896 and was decommissioned and scrapped in 1921. ARC-4-9 Pennsylvania-Class were commissioned in 1905-1908 (and not necessarily in numerical order), and were all sold for scrap (or sunk) by the end of 1931. I'll look into stating up the Pennsylvania later. I might write up a short program to help me with the calculations, since it can get kinda tedious doing that for multiple guns (8" Marks 5 and 6 for Pennsylvania). EDIT: This is from Wikipedia, and it says this is from Friedman's book, so I will look into it. Helpfully, the article's citation says that it's between pages 50 and 60.

I'm actually already working on a couple new cruiser lines. One is a more traditional cruiser line that came out of the research for this one, and then the one after that is Panzerschiffes, but with a twist I haven't seen anyone go with before.

Here we go! This is a complete rework of my previous USN CB Line, this time starting from tier 5. The only ship to not be reworked is the Tier 10, USS Guam. Tier V USS Memphis Last of the Big Armored Cruisers, the Tennessee-Class were the largest and most powerful class of armored cruisers built by the USN. The four ships of the class were initially named after states, but were named after cities in those states in the 1920s, when they were reclassified as heavy cruisers to free up those names for battleships. The ship, as presented stock, is based off of the Memphis (ex-Tennessee) as she was commissioned. In this configuration, she’ll mostly play as a battleship, except with fewer guns and weaker armor, those with subsequent upgrades, she will start playing close to a battlecruiser or supercruiser. The most visible change, of course, would be the Hull B upgrade, which would reduce the funnels for 4 to 3 and change the bow from a ram bow to a flared bow similar in design to the one found on the Lexington-Class Battlecruiser (modeled in-game as Constellation). It would also eliminate the lower 6” casemates and 3” sponsons, while adding some of those 6” guns as open mounts on the upper decks. It would also add in at least some anti-air in the form of 5”/25 and .50 cal guns. While I’d want the funnel change to be reserved for the engine change, I do not know of any ships that have such a feature. Speaking of engines, it was found that they could install a power plant similar to that found on USS Ranger into the 3 remaining ships of the class without having to reshaft the ships, which would give the ships (USS Memphis having earlier being destroyed by a tsunami) a speed of 26 knts. This was never carried out. As part of the various modernization plans, where was discussion of replacing her aging twin 10”/40 main battery with newer triple 8”/55 guns, which I believe would appear similar to the B and X turrets of the Pensacola. Tier VI “Reciprocal Cruiser” USS New York City [Picture Not Available] A follow-up design to the Tennessee-Class, this ship was proposed by the Naval War College and was favored for a time, before losing out in favor of the battlecruiser. The idea of the “Reciprocal Cruiser” was to trade armament for speed, as opposed to the battlecruiser, which traded armor for speed. This cruiser was supposed to be powerful enough to fight through a screening element and survivable enough to comeback to report what intelligence was gathered. At this moment, I have been having difficulty getting hard numbers for this ship, but what is known is that it would have been similar in size to the Tennessee, but would trade the latter’s 6-inch battery for heavier armor and 12-inch guns. For armor, I looked to period USN battleships and used their upper belt for the main belt and the casemate armor for the upper belt, while the deck armor was kept the same (meaning a vulnerability to plunging fire). The turret armor is off of the USS Connecticut (1906), which also used the same guns. The speed is based off of the fact that the USN wanted ships 20% faster that battleships to handle this role (this was shortly after the battlecruiser won out over the reciprocal cruiser, but they were two different ways to do the same job, so I thought it appropriate). The upgrade from Hull A to Hull B will follow the same idea as the previous class, with a more modern bow being added, as well as sacrificing the lower casemates and sponsons, which would be wet, anyway, for better compartmentalization. Tier VII Heavy Cruiser Scheme 3 USS Sacramento One of the designs leading up to the Alaska, this scheme was rejected, as it was seen as "unbalanced". That is, this design was meant to stand up only against 8" gun fire, and not 12" guns. I feel that the Sacramento would be a good transition from the Armored Cruisers to the Large Cruisers, without being too over powered. She introduces the three turret layout and the speed, while missing the overall heavy armor of the preceding ships. Tier VIII CA2-E USS Samoa While at first glance, the Samoa might look like a Congress with one less gun, but the Samoa follows the armor profile of the actual CA2-E, meaning that the main deck is 51mm, as opposed to the 38mm of Congress. Overall protection from bombs should be the same, as the main deck is thicker, the armored deck is thinner. This is will give some protection from HE spammers. Tier IX CA2-G USS Philippines While the CA2-G lacks a barrel when compared to the Alaska, she makes up for this in armor. The turret layout has a 3-gun turret fore and aft, with the two-gun turret superfiring over the forward turret. Tier X USS Guam Instead of trying to pare down the Alaska to a Tier 9, it seemed easier to push her up to Tier 10. Increased reload, better range, better turret rotation, and increased health are some of the things that have been improved. CA2-H would be a more consistent choice with the line, but the Guam was a 'Real Steel' ship and so I chose her. Premium Tier VIII “Improved Wichita” armed with 12” guns USS Madison [Picture Not Available] The “Improved Wichita” would eventually become the Baltimore-Class. There was discussion on what it would take to equip this ship with 12” guns. Mostly this entailed increasing the length by some 6 feet in order to make room for the ammunition. She should handle much like the standard Wichita, for the most part, just with bigger guns.

Hydro is not too much of a hinderance, and while Radar is fairly common, I've had tier 10 matches with either no Radar or 2 on either side.

It would be an interesting mechanic, but it would be better if it was an Axis vs Allies sort of thing, and then only in a special mode. Otherwise, there are some nations that would never get it.