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Today we'll be looking at German and British reports on why the famous battleship Bismarck sunk, in a universe we're glad we don't live in. We'll begin with Germany: On the sinking of the Bismarck The sinking of the Bismarck may have been caused by being hit by Ark Royal, but closer inspection reveals it was a series of mishaps that caused the battleship to be sunk. It began, a few years back, when a worker error caused half of a sheet of gruyere cheese to be mistaken for swiss[citation needed], and mailed to the royal navy. Ironically, the torpedo protection ended up being half made of swiss because of the error. The next error was during the Bismarck's last battle. Although why he did so is a complete mystery, Lutjens chose to make out with his ship[citation needed], which is troubling for the ship and other commanders. Don't give them any ideas. Finally, the Ark Royal sent a squadron of torpedo rocs to destroy the Bismarck. It is unknown why they did this, in any case velociraptors would've been much more effective. Nonetheless, the torpedoes soundly cut through the softer swiss cheese half of the torpedo protection plate consisted of. The Bismarck sank quickly, and some of the crew was rescued by British ships. Lutjens and Bismarck are currently missing, and it is suspected that they are aboard the Ark Royal[citation needed]

As it stands, as most people can agree, the Grozovoi, from what I can gather from a large variety of players, the Grozovoi is a bit... boring. Anything she can do other ships can do better, and as such, could use some mixing up to her statistics, and I personally have one that could give a superbly unique feature to her. This change would update her to the new meta's since her introduction to the game. She did recently get a repair party, but that isn't unique, as that is what the RN DDs have too, and I would argue that despite this change, Daring has better survivability. I would like to see optional main armament, with a particular turret design in mind. As it stands, the Grozovoi has been equipped by WG the 130 mm/58 SM-2-1 turret, an appropriate turret choice to fit the schematic design Project 40n, which calls for a twin , dual purpose, tri-axle 130mm gun. Now, I am sure we can agree, World of Warships is a bit of an alternate universe, one where all these designed/proposed ship designs were actually built. The turret I have in mind, if it had been built, and considered a successful design, I could image the russian navy replacing the 130 mm/58 SM-2-1 of the Grozovoi, and other similarly weighted dual purpose weapons on other ships. The Turret which I have in mind is the BL-127, a quad barreled 100mm/70 gunned tri-axle turret; The BL-127 was a turret designed to replace/upgrade installations of the SM-5 turret, which was present as the secondary armament on five Chapaev class and twenty Sverdlov class (Pr.68bis) cruisers. (In-game, we see the turret present on the Mikhail Kutuzov, the upgraded Chapeyev, and the upgraded Dmitri Donskoi) The BL-127 used the same identical gun barrels, fired the same ammunition, without adding a significant amount of weight to the ship. Why use this turret as an optional armament? Well, it would give a significant difference in just how she plays, something unique, to distinguish her from her counterparts. No other ship would be like it, in a destroyer having optional gameplay formats like this. . It would also give her other unique characteristics, in having the most number of guns on any DD, featuring gameplay similar to the Harugumo, but with 2 more guns, slower reload, and a heal. This is not to say the Grozovoi is in her current state underpowered, she is a very competitive all-purpose ship. Despite being ranked as the 2nd least popular T10 destroyer, she has the best Plane kill ratio at T10 for DDs, beaten only by the Kidd and Neustrashimy for overall DDs. Firstly, you downgrade your gun caliber to upgrade the quantity of fire power per volley. The BL-127 turret, on paper at least, supposedly retained the same 4 seconds reload that the SM-5 turrets had, now, WG can make changes on this front for balance reasons, perhaps 4.0 to keep it inline with the SM-2-1 turrets the Grozovoi already has. Which brings me to the point in that because this turret was never built or tested, WG can modify its stats to their hearts content to make it balanced. The gameplay would more resemble that of the Harugumo, the only DD in the game currently armed with 100mm guns. From playing her notable qualities/quirks of a 100mm guns is, for example, HE is not too effective against other DDs, unless you have IFHE. Just like any other DD, these 100mm guns would be quite the fire starter, I personally suggest a 4% chance for fire, as that would give the 12 gun broadside fire chance to set fire of 48%, which is average amongst the other T10 DD broadsides. Would such a turret swap physically work? In my personal opinion, yes, for the short answer at least. The long answer? Well, The SM-5-1, the turret the BL-127 was designed to replace, weighs 45.8 metric tons, the BL-127 turret however weighs 66 metric tons. This was, according to the engineers, not a problem and would not require any severe changes to the cruisers to implement this change. Now that is out of the way, the SM-2-1, which the Grozovoi is currently equipped with, weighs 57.3 metric tons. This means to have all 3 of these turrets replaced with the BL-127 would increase the weight of the Grozovoi by 26.1 metric tons. In-game, the Grozovoi currently weighs in grand total 3,849 tons. (I do not know if that is metric or standard tons) thus the increase on weight would be less then 0.7% weight increase to the ship. So for tonnage concern, the weight increase is negligible. As for the width of the barbette, the BL-127 was designed to have one that is 3.95 meters wide, as the SM-2-1, I cannot find the data on that front. But I would assume it is similar, and if such a circumstance had occurred in the alternate reality that WoWS exists in, a minor difference on turret ring size would be an easily retrofitted change. Both the SM-2-1 and BL-127 are tri-axled turrets, so the mounting should be compatible with minor modifications. The ammunition elevators I would not imagine taking up more room, probably even less room, assuming the Left pair and Right pair of 100mm guns each shared their elevator, assuming all 4 guns don't share the same munitions elevator in the first place. In-game statistics of BL-127 as a Primary Armament (These stats are just my own interpretation/estimations, based off of the closest approximations in the game, Harugumo's 100mm/65 Type 98 and the SM-5-1s turrets found on Kutuzov/Chapayev/Dm.Donskoi, plus corrections for balance) [square bracket indicates the stats of the SM-2-1 turret of the Grozovoi as of 0.7.6.0] Range: 12.3km [12.3km] Reload: 5.0s [4.2s] Fire %: 6% [8%] 180 Traverse: 16s [10s] Dispersion: 95m [107m] HE Dmg: 1400 [1800] AP Dmg: 1900 [2600] HE Vel. 1000/s [950m/s] AP Vel. 1000m/s [950m/s] In-Game Statistics of the BL-127 as an AA Armament (These stats are just my own interpretation/estimations, based off of the Akizuki's 100mm/65 Type 98 and the SM-5-1s turrets found on Kutuzov/Chapeyev/Dm.Donskoi, plus corrections for balance) [square bracket indicates the stats of the SM-2-1 turret of the Grozovoi as of 0.8.6.0] Number of explosions per Salvo: 6 [4] DPS within a shell's blast radius: 1600 [1680] Continuous DPS within the action zone: 185 [97] Range: 3.5km-5.8km [3.5km-6km] Hit probability: 85% [100] Final Comments: The biggest thing this ship lacks any characteristic to it that she is the best at. There is nothing this ship is better at then any other DD. Her survivability was increased recently by adding a repair party, but the Daring I feel is better with her repair party and the fact she takes less damage overall from having a thinner hull and better concealment meaning it gets shot less. Her offensive strength is pretty average, both for her mains and torpedoes. Her AA is really good, but without DefAA its arguable if she is the best or not. This re-armament choice would give the ship the biggest broadside, of 12x100mm, compared to the closest and most similar competitor, the Harugumo, which can fire faster to compensate, but only the grozovoi would be able to boast having 8 bow on guns. Or you know, you could divide the Grozovoi into a 2nd ship with these guns for a T10 premium.

With the release of OHIO (Montana with 4x2 457mm guns, faster repair, and Massachusetts (Mass) secondaries in the works, I would like to propose an alternate Tech Tree Branch for USN Battleships. Branching from New Mexico, you choose between Colorado or: T7: Nevada; with 10 15in guns and and secondaries like Mass except the base range is at least 6km. I don't think it will be WV44 since WG already promised her months ago, and no other USN BB in game has 15in rifles. Plus it's Nevada, the same BB that when used as a target took constant punishment from several ships for almost 3 days, without a DMC party or fighting back! T8: Washington; Main Battery should be at least 1.8 and at most 1.9 to put her accuracy in the middle of Mass and NC as well as and at least 20km range, Mass Repair Party and DMC cooldown, & secondaries identical to Mass except 5 sec reload instead of 4. This will give Washington the Profile of a BB with emphasis on her secondaries, but won't fully outclass NC or Mass with the former's higher sigma and range and the later's faster firing secondaries. T9: New Jersey or Wisconsin; Identical to current premium Georgia except with 3x3 406mm guns at 1.8 sigma (to not outclass Iowa and MO as ships that fire accurately at range), no EB, and some extra armor protection (Georgia is a bit frail for a BB). This way, NJ/WI will be the slower but tougher ship, while Georgia is the faster and more nimble of the two thanks to her EB, as well as her unique main battery. T10; OHIO!!!!!!! Please WG, make this happen. You did this for USN cruisers, Russian and Japanese DD's, and those changes worked fine. It's time for a new alternate branch!!! *EDIT* - Nevada never had 15in gun, only the 10 14in guns. Maybe branch off from New York and instead we have Nevada at T6 w/1944 config with the 8 dual 127mm, and then T7 Maryland or California.