Jaek_

I'm not super experienced with ship models (1/48 aircraft are my comfort zone), but I'm planning on painting my 1/350 Yamato in the alternate (blue) permanent camouflage scheme from WoWS. If that goes well I'm considering doing a model of Atago in her ridiculous green and pink permanent camo. I think the idea of modeling ships my favorite ships from the game in their fictional camouflages is intriguing and it's something I want to try when I find the time.

Sherman is basically just a better Groningen. Groningen is a firestarter and HE is pretty much the only shell type you use with that ship. Sherman, on the other hand, has SAP in her tool kit which adds the variety of shell choice to your gunboating adventures. Sherman's also got some torps that are fun to throw down chokepoints (and I get more hits with them than I would expect to). But really, it's all about that SAP. Forrest Sherman's insane SAP DPM is the reason you buy the ship IMO. There isn't another destroyer in the game that has guns that are like Forrest Sherman's guns as far as I'm aware.

Don't forget the ability to drive up right next to a battleship without being detected, surface just enough to fire all of your torps at him from a range where he can't hope to dodge (or depth charge you because if you're rushing him he can't lead the depth charge enough due to the minimum airstrike range), and then surface before he can turn his guns to hit you. IIRC some of these are getting changed in 11.4 but I can't remember.

I redownloaded the game to get Forrest Sherman, that's how badly I wanted the ship. And she absolutely lived up to my expectations. Probably one of the best "purchases" I made in the game. Although, to be fair, gunboat destroyers are my bread and butter, so I knew it would be a good fit for me.

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Gearing is a hybrid ship, more focused on torps these days due to her guns being powercrept by the competition, and Sherman is a dedicated gunboat that just so happens to have a few torps for you to throw at the enemy. Think of Sherman being a tier 10 Friesland because they're very similar in a lot of ways.

Sherman's "one trick" of having absurd DPM with flat arcs is definitely one of the best tricks to have in my opinion. That ship is just intoxicating amounts of fun to play.

I'm against the concept of superships in randoms, but I can deal with the super surface ships, they aren't that much of an issue for me and I've been able to adapt. But not so with the supership carriers. The tactical squadrons are absurdly powerful, being able to rapidly cross the map and deal huge damage, and they don't even have to fly through your AA for more than 5 seconds. By the time you can even see the jet planes coming in, the enemy is already lining up the drop, and by the time your rudder has shifted the ordinance has probably already been dropped. And of course at that point he's already taking off with the next set of planes, ready to do it again and again. When a ship like Worcester isn't able to stop the super carrier and provide screening for teammates, you know something's wrong. From what I can tell, the "counterplay" of AA does literally nothing to them. There is no way to "just dodge" if you're playing a heavy cruiser or battleship. The only counterplay I've found so far is to stick to tier 8 and below. It's a shame because I used to really enjoy tier 10, but now I'm repulsed by the off chance that I run into an enemy super carrier who wants me dead. That's how unfun they are to play against, at least for me.

Playing Riga was such a breath of fresh air after suffering in Tallinn for so long. Getting armor and a heal makes a HUGE difference.

They won't lose any value, and as I understand it, after the change the Kobayashi camos will be visual only and there won't be an option to buy the enhanced economic bonus. On top of that you'll be able to revert to the default visual permanent camo if beer can Roma isn't something you're into. Kii, Roma, and Ashitaka have Kobayashi camos that provide the same +100% XP / +20% credits / -50% service if the wiki is accurate. Yamato has a Kobayashi camo as well, but its bonuses are not enhanced and are the same as the cheaper Type 20 camo.

In my opinion subs should be proximity spotted by all ships at 1km (maybe even 500m), similar to how hydro works to 2km. If I'm hunting one in a destroyer that doesnt have hydro, I can chase him down and get close but then he dives away and I have to guess where to depth charge, which usually results in lots of hits but no kill. It's gotten to the point where I just don't even bother going for subs in my destroyers any more unless I know they're going to be an easy kill since it's a waste of my time and leaves me out of position. Even then, I feel like the ship-mounted depth charges are extremely weak when you consider how much effort it takes to actually make use of them. I feel like ship-launched depth charges should do much more damage since they're harder to use compared to airstrikes, especially on cruisers (risk vs reward). On top of that, it's extremely frustrating when a sub waits right underneath my battleship and only momentarily surfaces to shotgun me. I'm not sure if it's been changed or not, but about a month ago I had a sub sitting underneath my Kii. I knew he was there, I was ready and fully focused on hitting him, and I had a teammate right with me who knew what he was about to do, but he only became spotted when he surfaced just high enough to launch torps, but not high enough to enter the periscope depth damage zone. He was within minimum ASW range as well so I was literally unable to damage him with any of my weapons. After that game I tried replicating the tactic to see if it was difficult to pull off. It wasn't, I did it first try, and haven't touched a sub since because of how incredibly cheap it felt. I felt bad for my enemy for the first time in playing this game. Not sure exactly how I would address that, perhaps an even unguided torpedo arming distance or a short delay between reaching periscope depth and being able to fire unguided torps to give the enemy at least a chance of shooting back; the 1km spotting would help dissuade them from parking in the "safe zone" that is right underneath your ship.

I'm up to tier 8 in Soviet destroyers (Kiev and Ognevoi) and tier 5 in French destroyers and I think I want to do a little open water gunboating so I'm thinking about revisiting a line and finishing it up. Which one should I go for first?

They are detected out to the hydro's range when surfaced or at periscope depth, like any other ship class. When submerged they can only be spotted out to 2km when hydro is active (assured detectability range). Using hydro and getting within 2km of a sub is the only way to detect one when they're underwater AFAIK, which just feels wrong. Even if it was only 1km I'd like to see all ships be able to spot subs at max depth.

Frankly I find a lot of ships completely unenjoyable in the current state of the game. I mostly stopped playing battleships and cruisers, I dont enjoy subs, and I dont open the ship game to fly airplanes. So most of my time has been in destroyers recently. For example, Groningen's good AA and hydro make her good at dealing with (or mitigating) subs and CVs; Forrest Sherman is just incredibly fun in general. Operations get repetitve but they're quite enjoyable as well. Just gotta find the fun whereveer you can I guess.

Kobayashi camos are sepecific to individual ships since it's a permanent camo that stays on the ship you bought it for. Kii, Roma, Ashitaka, and Yamato have optional Kobayashi camos, but Yamato's doesn't provide any additional bonuses over the standard permanent camo.

It's not in the armory, it's in the exterior menu. I worded that poorly, my apologies.