After the disappointing UK Cruiser launch, anything to look forward to in UK BBs

[Boomax77]

^

 

I really hope they do better with the BBs/BCs than the cruisers

[SergeantHop]

British cruisers are disappointing?

[Teahee]

Personally I quite like the new RN CLs, but I agree they are a very niche playstyle and that the low tier ships are slightly under powered. 

 

The RN BB line should be interesting, judging by the Warspite that is. After all, the Warspite has a cruiser style DCP, and can heal citadel damage, hopefully these traits will be common to the entire RN line, which would be pretty interesting. 

[Morpheous]

British CLs above T5 are almost OP

[Kingfishercritic]

My Reaction to Low Tier British Cruisers: Fun, but 

 

[1SneakyDevil]

Maybe OP doesn't have the skill to drive them but they are far from disappointing. I've been fairly impressed by what I've seen in battles with and against them.

[pmgaudio]

British cruisers are disappointing?

 

if you have no idea how to play them properly..... yes,

 

so apparently........

 

 

[BladedPheonix]

British cruisers are disappointing?

 

oh you know those noobs! Give them anything challenging and they call it garbage!

[BladedPheonix]

Maybe OP doesn't have the skill to drive them but they are far from disappointing. I've been fairly impressed by what I've seen in battles with and against them.

 

This is most likely the case. Been seeing a  lot of DDs having issues with the new UK cruisers, That partial AP round is really deadly against soft targets!

[SergeantHop]

 

oh you know those noobs! Give them anything challenging and they call it garbage!

 

QFT.

[mofton]

Well, high skill floor, abnormal RN CL aside, the RN might have some things to look forwards to depending on if it's a battlecruiser or battleship line.

 

WG may release a premium HMS Hood, which will be (I speculate) a T7 Warspite with 30kt speed and a ton of HP. Cue 'hur detonation joke'.

 

WG may put out HMS Nelson at T7, with 9 16in guns in a similar arrangement to Izumo but with the 3rd turret pointed forward.

 

WG may put out a non-premium QE class at T6, which would likely have better AA than Warspite and otherwise differ.

 

The KGV class at about T8 are an odd one. fast enough, well armored but 14in guns.

 

Low tiers there's a Kongo look-alike if they go battlecruisers, otherwise should be competitive and fun ships. Uppermost tiers there are 'pedestrian' Lion class or whacky 20's designs with all kinds of odd (bad) turret layouts.

[SergeantHop]

Well, high skill floor, abnormal RN CL aside, the RN might have some things to look forwards to depending on if it's a battlecruiser or battleship line.

 

WG may release a premium HMS Hood, which will be (I speculate) a T7 Warspite with 30kt speed and a ton of HP. Cue 'hur detonation joke'.

 

WG may put out HMS Nelson at T7, with 9 16in guns in a similar arrangement to Izumo but with the 3rd turret pointed forward.

 

WG may put out a non-premium QE class at T6, which would likely have better AA than Warspite and otherwise differ.

 

The KGV class at about T8 are an odd one. fast enough, well armored but 14in guns.

 

Low tiers there's a Kongo look-alike if they go battlecruisers, otherwise should be competitive and fun ships. Uppermost tiers there are 'pedestrian' Lion class or whacky 20's designs with all kinds of odd (bad) turret layouts.

 

I think Nelson would be a better choice at tier 8. Too much firepower, especially concentrated forward, for tier 7.

[Dunk_Master_Flex]

 

I think Nelson would be a better choice at tier 8. Too much firepower, especially concentrated forward, for tier 7.

 

No, Nelson is a perfect Tier 7 as she is the contemporary of Colorado and Nagato.

 

While she has more guns, better armor and good AA, she can only fire two turrets directly forward, needing to angle to get that third turret off. Her 16 inch guns are also mediocre when compared to Colorado and Nagato.

 

She is fine. 

[SergeantHop]

 

No, Nelson is a perfect Tier 7 as she is the contemporary of Colorado and Nagato.

 

While she has more guns, better armor and good AA, she can only fire two turrets directly forward, needing to angle to get that third turret off. Her 16 inch guns are also mediocre when compared to Colorado and Nagato.

 

She is fine. 

 

Contemporary is completely irrelevant. Pensacola is far older than Cleveland, but is still a tier higher. Nelson has 6 16" guns forward, with the ability to get 9 forward with minimal angling. Nelson at tier 7 would be beyond ridiculous.

[mofton]

 

Contemporary is completely irrelevant. Pensacola is far older than Cleveland, but is still a tier higher. Nelson has 6 16" guns forward, with the ability to get 9 forward with minimal angling. Nelson at tier 7 would be beyond ridiculous.

 

Nelson's 16in guns aren't great and could have a say 35sec reload. Armor is good, speed is slow - except when compared to poor Colorado. 'P' turret might not get as good angles as you'd hope. Within the realms of balance.

[BrushWolf]

British cruisers are disappointing?

 

This, they good but they are also very different beasts than the other CL's. I like the challenge of them.

[Sir_Godz]

up to T5 for me so far and yes they are worthless. Bouncing shells of broad DDs is pathetic.

 

If the warspite is anything to go on then the armor will be crap and the turrets welded in place.

[Guest]

They seem to be quite potent in the hands of the right player, but the opposite can happen to a person unable to handle the unique traits of the tree. 

[SergeantHop]

 

Nelson's 16in guns aren't great and could have a say 35sec reload. Armor is good, speed is slow - except when compared to poor Colorado. 'P' turret might not get as good angles as you'd hope. Within the realms of balance.

 

The same could be said the other way, in the name of balance. Per her equipment, Nelson has more in common with a tier 8 than a tier 7. Speed is only around a knot slower than Nagato, and while she wouldn't be able to keep up very well with the tier 8s, there are other ways to balance the ship. Like most battleships, there could be an engine upgrade to bring the speed up a bit. Other than that, there really isn't that much that would make the ship not practical at tier 8. 

 

Also, the turrets were called A B and X. P referred to the portside secondary battery, and were numbered, like P1, etc.

[Super_Dreadnought]

I imagine that WG will make the British BBs fire only torpedoes as their special flavour.

[mofton]

The same could be said the other way, in the name of balance. Per her equipment, Nelson has more in common with a tier 8 than a tier 7. Speed is only around a knot slower than Nagato, and while she wouldn't be able to keep up very well with the tier 8s, there are other ways to balance the ship. Like most battleships, there could be an engine upgrade to bring the speed up a bit. Other than that, there really isn't that much that would make the ship not practical at tier 8. 

 

 

 

Also, the turrets were called A B and X. P referred to the portside secondary battery, and were numbered, like P1, etc.

 

It could, though there seems to be a minimum speed limit for T8 of about 28kts. She could get an a-historic speed boost which no other ship has, or she could get a slight tweak to her main battery ROF like many others have (New Mex 35s, Dunkerque/Fuso 28 seconds). Charging around at what, 23.5kts as a T8 vs' 27.5, 30 and 31kts? Absolute slowpoke on the T10 maps she'd see.

 

Her 16in's are pretty bad compared to those of all other nations. A 2,048 lb projectile at 797 mps vs. North Carolina's 2,700lbs at 700mps and Nagato's 2,250lbs at 790 is not that impressive.

 

Her displacement, only 41,250t at full load is entirely inadequate for T8 where she'll see 52,600t Tirpitz.

 

Her AA, although refits are likely is also entirely not up to T8 standards. There is an outright limit to deck space. You're starting with 6x 4.7in HA guns as the outer AA umbrella, Tirpitz/Bismarck are packing 16 of the 4.1in equivalents. North Carolina can reach out with 20 barrels of 5in.

 

 

 

You could possibly make Nelson a T8 with the big planned refit, or I think a much smaller refit and possible adjustment to firing rate could see this ship work at T7, staying closer to history. I was certainly more convinced before Gneisenau wondered in with her 15in and speed upgrades, but Nelson at T7 seems reasonable. Leave KGV for T8, despite the 14in guns.

[TenguBlade]

Nelson's 16in guns aren't great and could have a say 35sec reload. Armor is good, speed is slow - except when compared to poor Colorado. 'P' turret might not get as good angles as you'd hope. Within the realms of balance.

Basically, whatever it takes for you to not have a 23-knot battleship at T8.  Get over it.  If Nelson becomes the ultimate tank of the T8s in exchange for lower speed, I could care less.

 

The British 16" gun compares pretty favorably with the German 15" rifles found on Bismarck and Tirpitz.  Not to mention that, although its velocity is low compared to the IJN 16" gun in practice, its designed velocity was 823m/s: the fourth-fastest BB shell velocity in the game, after Scharnhorst at 890, Izumo's 875, and Dunkerque's 870.  Using that number could give it more-than-adequate penetration, and if that's not enough, buff the reload to 28 seconds from 30 - Dunkerque in particular shows WG doesn't care about historical reload times if it doesn't suit them (she had 1.5RPM normally, or a 40-second reload).

 

Nelson's belt (14"), turrets (16" face, 11" sides, 7.25" roof), and total deck (12.5" max, 10.5" min) armor also exceed that of all existing T8 and T9 battleships on paper, in addition to having some of the steepest innate angles of any warship.  Her displacement is just over 33000 tons empty - at T7 levels, yes, but with more armor than anything but a T10 battleship, it's only fair to have a lower displacement.  Before you cry about HE spam ripping this ship down: the weakest armor she has is the 1" sides of the secondary mounts.  That means only heavy cruisers will have potent-enough HE to even damage Nelson at all.  Across the rest of the ship, the entire thing is more than heavily-armored enough to resist penetration by cruiser-caliber HE shells - they can penetrate up to ~32mm of armor (Moskva ~36), or ~1.26 (~1.41) inches of armor.

 

When it comes to secondary armament, Nelson's secondaries are more than adequate protection from surface threats - the 6" guns are excellent anti-ship weapons, and the 4.7" guns had a HE round developed so we will likely see them employed as part of the battery as well.  Looking at Nelson's end-of-war AA armament, we get 118 DPS from the pom-poms (exactly twice as many of them as on Edinburgh) with a 2.5km range, another 183 DPS from her 61 20mm cannons at 2km, and 77.3 DPS from her Bofors at 3.5km.  Unfortunately, the British 120mm DP gun doesn't have many equivalents in-game; the closest are the secondary guns on Myogi, Mutsuki, and Aoba, but these guns are a poor comparison as the QF MKVIII has more than double the rate of fire, better directors, and a heavier shell (though lower velocity).  Not sure how the last one would factor in, but just scaling the DPS of the IJN 120mm via rate of fire gives a long-range DPS of 43.2 - what the range will be is up for debate.

 

Anyways, I see no issue with how she stands right now.  Mostly short-ranged AA, yes, but the same can be said of virtually any line besides the German BBs.  Nelson's AA DPS in top form, assuming my calculations stand, comes out to: 421.5 DPS at 2km minimum, 238.5 from 2-2.5km, 120.5 from 2.5-3.5km, and 43.2 from 3.5 to her max innate range.  For comparison, Bismarck's AA DPS at the same ranges are 374/236/236/133, North Carolina 547/389/389/151, Amagi 305/305/80/80, and Tirpitz 237/153/153/133.  

[YamatoA150]

Nelson is likely stuck in T7 unless they decide to squeeze Vanguard down to T7 with her T6 level 15" guns, put Nelson in at T8, and KGV as a T8 Premium due to having 14".  This is assuming they remodeled the RN BB line based on caliber instead of working out Vanguard or KGV w/ 15" MkII guns which allow them to perform as good as, if not better than, German 15" in-game, and better than Nelson's 16" in overall performance.  That would directly lead to Lion with 16" to take T9, and any of the 1920s super-battleship concepts to take T10 w/ 457mm (18") cannons, such as L3.

 

As to shell velocities, WG is likely going to use what was actually used rather than as-designed, unless it's a paper design that never saw physical testing or saw very limited testing w/o barrel wear consideration (Moskva's and Zao's cannons notably, Izumo's as well, and Russia's 16" for Soyuz once the VMF BB line comes out).  Just look at the USN line and their high shell arcs and velocities due to how they were used in combat rather than based on what tests showed was the max possible w/o regard to barrel wear.  This is also what makes arming Vanguard and/or KGV with the 15" Mk II cannons a possible game changer and a reason to place them higher than Nelson, as the weapon is mostly paper, it allows for ideal stats to be used rather than "as actually used" stats.

 

Nelson will also suffer from anemic traverse and RoF, and likely poor rudder shift.  However, her speed, armor, turning radius, and ability to bring 9 guns to bear at once while maneuvering or angling all more than make up for it.  She might also see IJN/KM level secondary ranges too, if that's not unique to Warspite.

 

Also, it's not like we haven't had super armored ships in-game that could handle HE rain or tank shells better than others above the tier; see Scharnhorst/Gneis with their ultra thick bows, Nikolai, or Konig Albert.  Of course, the tradeoff for all that gun resistance/immunity is atrocious TDS and anemic gun power.

 

Now again, I'm not saying Nelson can't be made to fit T8, but forcing her in via more soft stat padding than what she would need to fit T7 makes it an unlikely proposition.  And again, that's assuming WG doesn't reverse Nelson and KGV/Vanguard based on caliber, or outfitting KGV/Vanguard with the 15" MkII that would perform better than Nelson's 16", which would be firmly stuck with as it performed rather than ideal stats.

 

As to the topic in general, I'm cautiously optimistic for the RN BB line.  The biggest issue really is most of them, if not all of them, having relatively anemic traverse and either slow rudder shift (Warspite/Nelson) or low speed.  However, they are the only other line that WG tentatively confirmed would have 457mm cannons on the T10, so another big gun battleship that's more like Yamato than like Montana/Kurfurst.

[Yorcke]

Referring to guns: size matters

[mofton]

Basically, whatever it takes for you to not have a 23-knot battleship at T8.  Get over it.  If Nelson becomes the ultimate tank of the T8s in exchange for lower speed, I could care less.

 

The British 16" gun compares pretty favorably with the German 15" rifles found on Bismarck and Tirpitz.  Not to mention that, although its velocity is low compared to the IJN 16" gun in practice, its designed velocity was 823m/s: the fourth-fastest BB shell velocity in the game, after Scharnhorst at 890, Izumo's 875, and Dunkerque's 870.  Using that number could give it more-than-adequate penetration, and if that's not enough, buff the reload to 28 seconds from 30 - Dunkerque in particular shows WG doesn't care about historical reload times if it doesn't suit them (she had 1.5RPM normally, or a 40-second reload).

 

Nelson's belt (14"), turrets (16" face, 11" sides, 7.25" roof), and total deck (12.5" max, 10.5" min) armor also exceed that of all existing T8 and T9 battleships on paper, in addition to having some of the steepest innate angles of any warship.  Her displacement is just over 33000 tons empty - at T7 levels, yes, but with more armor than anything but a T10 battleship, it's only fair to have a lower displacement.  Before you cry about HE spam ripping this ship down: the weakest armor she has is the 1" sides of the secondary mounts.  That means only heavy cruisers will have potent-enough HE to even damage Nelson at all.  Across the rest of the ship, the entire thing is more than heavily-armored enough to resist penetration by cruiser-caliber HE shells - they can penetrate up to ~32mm of armor (Moskva ~36), or ~1.26 (~1.41) inches of armor.

When it comes to secondary armament, Nelson's secondaries are more than adequate protection from surface threats - the 6" guns are excellent anti-ship weapons, and the 4.7" guns had a HE round developed so we will likely see them employed as part of the battery as well.  Looking at Nelson's end-of-war AA armament, we get 118 DPS from the pom-poms (exactly twice as many of them as on Edinburgh) with a 2.5km range, another 183 DPS from her 61 20mm cannons at 2km, and 77.3 DPS from her Bofors at 3.5km.  Unfortunately, the British 120mm DP gun doesn't have many equivalents in-game; the closest are the secondary guns on Myogi, Mutsuki, and Aoba, but these guns are a poor comparison as the QF MKVIII has more than double the rate of fire, better directors, and a heavier shell (though lower velocity).  Not sure how the last one would factor in, but just scaling the DPS of the IJN 120mm via rate of fire gives a long-range DPS of 43.2 - what the range will be is up for debate.

 

Anyways, I see no issue with how she stands right now.  Mostly short-ranged AA, yes, but the same can be said of virtually any line besides the German BBs.  Nelson's AA DPS in top form, assuming my calculations stand, comes out to: 421.5 DPS at 2km minimum, 238.5 from 2-2.5km, 120.5 from 2.5-3.5km, and 43.2 from 3.5 to her max innate range.  For comparison, Bismarck's AA DPS at the same ranges are 374/236/236/133, North Carolina 547/389/389/151, Amagi 305/305/80/80, and Tirpitz 237/153/153/133. 

Here's a way to not have a 23.5kt battleship at T8 - put one called KGV in. You're talking about buffing speed, guns and AA (by a lot) to make it T8, I simply think that despite her magnificent armor a gun nerf will almost certainly do the job at T7.

 

I was unaware of how heavily armored her upperworks and to a lesser extent deck were, however the simple solution to that is to reduce it. There's plenty of precedent - why do some ships have 13mm (Belfast - vulnerable to 203mm) or 16mm (Edinburgh, sistership - autobounces 203mm) bow armor and is the same applied to upperworks and superstructure in game? How does 'deck' interract with gunfire. Why are the only numbers for superstructures in game 13, 16 and 19mm? There was already talk of nerfing a swathe of armor for Akizuki for instance. Deck armor is a good point to raise and is particularly powerful in game, but you don't have to do damage to burn - at least in the pictures it is topped with wood!

 

Her 16in may have decent mv, but my less than perfectly informed glance at the penetration tables shows her coming up rather short compared to the Bismarck's 15in in horizontal penetration - for instance penetrating about the same at 13.7km than Bismarck does at 21.8 km, I don't know if it's shell aerodynamics or what but the penetration doesn't look too impressive. At 13.7km the N. Carolina's SHS's penetrate 50% more horizontal plate. If N. Carolina I've found, although not impotent then struggles against higher tier BB then what will Nelson be doing?

 

Secondaries wise, I'm not that familiar with mixed secondary armaments, but it's possible that the Mk XXIII - seen in game on the RNCL may be firing AP which will reduce it's usefulness. I'm not quite sure how AP/HE is determined on secondaries. Overall given that WG can choose to nerf your secondary ROF by 50% (USN BB) or arbitrarily extend the range over norms (Bismarck) I'll say it's hard to say. Counting the Mk XXIII 6in's the same as Bismarck's 150mm leaves them even, only with Bismark adding 8 barrels of 105mm to a broadside vs. 3 of the 4.7in's. That's not to factor in angles which, on Nelson are pretty Dunkerque-esque. Mounted aft of the widest part of the hull, bad arcs. But secondaries are, well secondary. Nagato I've played against and has far more potent looking secondaries.

 

AA-wise the outer 2 DPS bands are in many ways the most useful, stopping attacking aircraft before they launch - Nelson does about half as well at max range as the next lowest entrant (Amagi) and has about what, 1/3 of Bismarck/Tirpitz's? That's pretty bad. At the 'bofors band' of mid caliber AA she looks pretty bad again though she does at least beat Amagi, though she has 1/3 N.Car and 1/2 Bismarck and Amagi is known for poor AA. Overall I'd say it's underwhelming, especially when you factor in only a small amount of her DPS can take advantage of MFCAA if you wanted to go that way, and will this ship dance as an AA defense?

 

So, either add speed or accept a trailing ship which will either fail to keep up, or fall behind on a failed flank and not have the arcs to run and gun - which isn't fun. Add somewhat to the guns, a lot I think to the AA and I'll accept armor at the expense of HP (sucks against torpedoes though).

 

Or,

 

Reduce the gun ROF, leave the AA anaemic as it is, have a speed balanced tanky ship - though thickly armored, without the German trolltuleback for comparison maybe with her historic ROF - going as low as say 40 sec reload - though that's not a ship I'd want to drive, balanced or not. Maybe consider messing with deck armor or superstructure somehow, that is a new point for me to chew on.