Tzarevitch

1. Going too fast is a good reason to not smoke. The DD has to make a judgment call on that one. If you can't slow down enough, don't smoke. If you can get near to an allied AA ship it may be worth running rather than smoking. Also if there is an enemy radar ship in the area. Most non-IJN planes have a 10km detection range though. It isn't normally sneaking up on you. You have time to make a decision. 2. It's only at the center when it generates it. You also need to displace a bit. It doesn't take a lot of displacement for DBs to miss completely and to reduce rocket hits to few or zero. TBs are another story (see below). 3. This is true but it really is only an issue for TBs. For those the DD should not smoke because he needs to see them to dodge otherwise the CV will just blind drop across the smoke. He isn't going to chill out there if you just smoked. That is a long time with him doing nothing helpful. He may go back and get TBs but if he does that you run out of the smoke and move to a new position (with AA off) so he can't find you easily. Most CVs will go find another target and come back later (if they remember to). 4. That is also true. That is also why the DD has to use his judgment. If there is a DM nearby smoking is dangerous, but if there is a radar ship close by AND you are being attacked by the CV you got yourself into a bad position and you are likely dead regardless of what you do. Smoke is one of the hardest things for DBs and rocket planes to deal with. That being said it isn't a forcefield. The DD has to use it intelligently because there are places where it doesn't work well or is counter-productive. Most of the time it is the best defense DDs have. All other things being equal (no enemy radar ships around, no allied AA help nearby etc.) smoke should be used against HE DBs before they start their dive. If the DB is diving and you smoke then, even if you disappear, you can't displace far enough before the bombs drop and he will likely still hit you. DBs are difficult to outmaneuver and if you fail they can chunk you for a huge amount of damage. Midway in particular can take more than half of a DD's health in one pass and even after the nerfs they are still pretty accurate. That is far too big a risk to take compared to the value of a smoke change used t the right time. Lexington is only a bit less nasty. Rocket planes can be mitigated a bit by turning off AA and good maneuvering if you understand which direction the particular attack planes prefer to attack from, but smoke is a safer bet provided you use it early enough to confuse where you will be by the time they reach attack range. Smoke is centered on the DD when it was generated but they key is to smoke early enough that you can move far enough away from the center of the smoke that the planes can't easily predict where you are and saturate the area. I agree it is not a good idea to smoke against TBs because you are preventing yourself from seeing where he dropped the torpedoes. Being able to see where the TBs are is more valuable than you not being seen because he doesn't need to pinpoint-target you. He can just saturate the area with torpedoes. Midway is good at this one because it drops a lot of (weak) torpedoes and they don't really converge. It can cover a lot of smoke with torps in one drop. They are also slow so you sitting in your own smoke is doing them a favor.

I don't understand this either. I've been playing CVs them heavily and it happens over and over. It is the number 2 thing that gets DDs killed by planes, right behind leaving your AA on. The rocket plane (or especially a DB with HE) is coming right for them and they wait until the plane is on final attack approach or actually IN the dive to smoke. That's way too late, the plane has already pinpointed you. For DBs you really need to smoke at least 2km out before it starts the dive. If you are spotted and are facing rocket planes you need to smoke earlier to prevent him from approximating where you will be and saturating the area with rockets. The only time I don't recommend smoking is TBs because he'll just blind drop into the smoke and you won't be able to see them to evade.

I know the ship just entered testing with the CCs and the STs, but has there been any word about how the ship will be sold? My coal bunkers have been refilled and I have enough to get Georgia, but if Siegfried will be a coal ship I'd prefer to devote my bunkerage to it.

Agreed. That is about the only way a Flint could lose a battle against an Asashio. Couple of days ago I had a full-health Asashio surprise me in Le Terrible when I had 1/4 health and I still killed him (go, go reload booster). I escaped with ub 400 health left, but Flint should have been able to do it trivially. Asashio's guns do a lot of damage but they fire really slowly.

That is my suspicion as well. Also they're going to have to normalize the performance of the level bombers. Their penetration is too poor against uptier BBs and CAs (not sure on CLs) and they are too accurate against DDs.

I was in a match with one on my side. It hung in the back with the BBs and did nothing of use.

That was my suspicion of what it would be like and @LittleWhiteMouse and @Notser seem to have confirmed it. It's like Kaga in that aspect where the down-tiered planes are vulnerable to even moderate AA. Also, depending on whether it was a CC or ST I would be hesitant to rely put too much stock in it. The STs are testing aspects of the ship. They aren't necessarily all-out playing to win like a normal player would. He may have been trying to get data on AA interactions with Ark Royal's planes to help balancing it. If it was a CC that's another story, although he did still do quite well.

Yes. The IJN did not place emphasis on speed for their DD turrets. They were intended for surface engagements only. They were fairly slow turning and slow to reload. Akizuki was the only exception I can recall. This is in contrast to the USN where (after Farragut) turrets were almost always DP and were optimized to engage aircraft which required quick turrets and fast firing guns. Slow turrets were common through the IJN as I recall. Yamato's turrets were legendarily slow for example. As you can imagine size and weight are big factors as is the power of the motors powering the turning mechanism and the construction of the mechanism and the turret itself. The IJN wasn't alone with slow turrets though. As I recall UK BBs had some very slow turrets (triples and quads mainly). The KGV class and the Nelsons were infamous for it. I know they tried to use lighter-weight parts to save on tonnage but the light parts turned out to be unable to withstand the weight of the turrets without wearing down. The KGVs also had a problem where the clearance between the turrets and their barbettes wasn't large enough to account for the ships flexing while at sea. This meant that the turrets would turn extremely slowly and jam frequently as they ground against the barbette. As I recall when they discovered the problem they tried a lot of remedies to fix it, but there was only so much they can could do without major reconstruction. After WWI, the USN put emphasis on fast moving turrets across the board. The Iowas' turrets were very fast. Also, to point out, slow main battery turrets wasn't as big a problem in real world naval engagements because ships rarely maneuver and swing their turrets around as much as players do in the game. They mostly sailed fairly straight and at consistent speed to make aiming easier and not collide with fleet-mates.

If you are asking for a MM that balances player skill I think a lot of players (myself included) agree with you. Beyond that I have no idea what you are asking. There are skill variations throughout the game. Unicum players will tend to wipe the other side if no one on that side is particularly good. Also are you saying he is unicum because you know who he is or just because he did 120k more damage than your CV? Just because he did that much more damage doesn't mean he was unicum. I've managed that and I would certainly not call myself unicum by any means. It was just a really good game where all the stars aligned in my favor (meaning my team wasn't very good but theirs was terrible and hid in the back where I could farm them for damage.)

I've been playing CVs heavily since the rework. It doesn't surprise me at all about Kaga. It's a rough CV to play. It performs well when top tier and there aren't a lot of AA ships around of any tier (which CV doesn't?) but it doesn't handle on-tier AA very well and turns abysmal if you are bottom tier (which happens constantly at T8).

That would be funny and appropriate. lol. I've found you can attack Helenas and Atlantas with Furious you just have to be really careful and use good sense. You attack them if they park alongside islands and use the island to block detection and AA fire until it is too late. That is the natural habitat for Atlantas and Helenas so opportunities come up fairly often. Given a choice though I just avoid any USN cruiser unless I have to attack them or they are busy defending themselves against someone else. The losses to AA fire aren't worth the damage you'll inflict unless you are finishing off a cripple. Ark Royal will almost certainly be worse at going after ships like Atlanta because the planes are even slower, but the larger airgroups may counterbalance a bit. (I suspect not though.)

I would. Certainly for Ark Royal. It's the CV I've been waiting for second only to Enterprise. Like others have said I expect to use it heavily in operations where the AA is terrible and plane fragility (and slow speed) is more workable in return for more bombs and/or torps. I think it will also be workable in mainly T6/T7 randoms because there are a lot of very weak AA ships out there on those tiers. My one real concern is I suspect it will be even worse when uptiered than Kaga is. T8 AA isn't as lethal as T10 but the swordfish are VERY slow.

I have to say I am really liking Le Terrible now. I got it in a crate and I was rather upset at that. It took a while but after watching CC videos (particularly @Notser) showing it and its sister Le Fantasque, I am really understanding how to play it, and it works.

I would have no problem with a variant Alaska, but if the only real difference is a torpedo bulge VS aviation facilities how does this get to T10? It would need more. Quite a bit more.

The T3s and lower would beg to disagree. Very few of them ever saw any meaningful role in WW2. As would some of the T4s. I agree with you that there probably isn't much value to replaying Tsushima, but the game is most certainly not set only in the WW2 era.