Where are the Heavy Cruisers?

[Dreddnort]

I understand that the main British cruiser rationale was to cover the empire with light cruisers because of the expense so we see fewer heavy cruisers in their repertoire, but they did build a few good heavy cruisers, certainly worth adding a couple, say one from the County class and one from the York Class. I'm not understanding why these were omitted, but adding these ships and removing a few repeaters (ships that are so similar to the one before or after) would make the game all the more smashing!

[TabbyHopkins]

Because that would mess up the whole "RNCL" idea for the line....

 

And leave them open as premium options.

[ckupf]

Probably a partial line tiers 5-7 or 6-8 at some point.

[Dreddnort]

Because that would mess up the whole "RNCL" idea for the line....

 

And leave them open as premium options.

 

The 'light cruiser" idea is somewhat silly, especially when in order to fill the line you are merely adding virtually the same ship, Leander and Fiji are clear examples. The reason why we are hearing much lament from players is exactly this, there's little yield on the time spent. Other lines are filled with reward, with this pedantic line, slogging through two ships that equate to single progression (Danae/Emerald & Leander/Fiji) can be a turn off. I'd rather see a few heavies added to the line to broaden the appeal than hearing a handful of purists talk about how they had an Everest moment climbing this tedious line. Not talking about you of course :-)

[Ace_04]

Probably a partial line tiers 5-7 or 6-8 at some point.

 

Exactly.

 

The Royal Navy only had 5 actual classes of heavy cruisers, as they shifted production to light cruisers for the majority of WW2.  Hence, there are not enough heavy cruisers to fill out a complete line.

 

However, it wouldn't be a stretch to think there could be a sub-branch of heavy cruisers (T5-T8) at some point in the future.

[SergeantHop]

 

The 'light cruiser" idea is somewhat silly, especially when in order to fill the line you are merely adding virtually the same ship, Leander and Fiji are clear examples. The reason why we are hearing much lament from players is exactly this, there's little yield on the time spent. Other lines are filled with reward, with this pedantic line, slogging through two ships that equate to single progression (Danae/Emerald & Leander/Fiji) can be a turn off. I'd rather see a few heavies added to the line to broaden the appeal than hearing a handful of purists talk about how they had an Everest moment climbing this tedious line. Not talking about you of course :-)

 

You mean Fiji and Edinburgh? Leander and Fiji share no real similarities.

[Dreddnort]

 

You mean Fiji and Edinburgh? Leander and Fiji share no real similarities.

True, but looking at the out of box stats for all three, the data points are all well within a ten point spread, most around five. They are configured the same appart from the two gun turret and the three. The British light cruiser program was not diverse enough to have a line like this. The other main country cruiser lines, Japan, Germany and the US have mixed lines, CL and CAs, again just having a British CL line is silly and only, only hinders enthusiasm as well as logic (if you compare to the logic of other cruiser lineups).

[Carl]

They're still in Scapa Flow.

 

Seriously, they weren't included because WG'ing probably have a lot of work to do to work CA's in for britain. York is at best T6, she's basically an Aoba, but british. And the County's are a British Version of the KM York, so T7, if they wanted any T8+ they where going to have to use the various Churchill "Supercruiser" designs from the early part of WW2. But they only got basic specs laid out and would be a lot of work for WG'ing to implement. Then three tiers of Moskva's. Conversely with more detailed plans for Neptune and Minotaur available and CL's fit to T8 actually built filling T1-10 with pure CL's was much easier. So uh yeah they went with the one that got you british ships this year instead of next.

[ArmouredCarriers]

The issue was more than just expense.

From memory, the calculated minimum to provide commerce protection across the empire (North Sea, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean) was 60 cruiser hulls.

 

The problem was building that many hulls within treaty total tonnage limits.

So they went CL to get more hulls in the water.

Japan and the US, for example, didn't need to cover that much water. So they could build fewer hulls, bigger.

 

It wasn't until the mid-late 30s when the treaties started to break down that the RN started building larger CLs.

Churchill loved heavy cruisers and insisted on new CA designs be drawn up throughout the war - though none were ordered due to ant-submarine and anti-air escort demand.

[ArmouredCarriers]

They're still in Scapa Flow.

 

Seriously, they weren't included because WG'ing probably have a lot of work to do to work CA's in for britain. York is at best T6, she's basically an Aoba, but british. And the County's are a British Version of the KM York, so T7, if they wanted any T8+ they where going to have to use the various Churchill "Supercruiser" designs from the early part of WW2. But they only got basic specs laid out and would be a lot of work for WG'ing to implement. Then three tiers of Moskva's. Conversely with more detailed plans for Neptune and Minotaur available and CL's fit to T8 actually built filling T1-10 with pure CL's was much easier. So uh yeah they went with the one that got you british ships this year instead of next.

 

But nowhere near as much difficulty as the Russian and German trees.

Less fantasy needed than both. And the few paper designs are no worse.

[ArmouredCarriers]

 

The 'light cruiser" idea is somewhat silly, especially when in order to fill the line you are merely adding virtually the same ship, Leander and Fiji are clear examples. The reason why we are hearing much lament from players is exactly this, there's little yield on the time spent. Other lines are filled with reward, with this pedantic line, slogging through two ships that equate to single progression (Danae/Emerald & Leander/Fiji) can be a turn off. I'd rather see a few heavies added to the line to broaden the appeal than hearing a handful of purists talk about how they had an Everest moment climbing this tedious line. Not talking about you of course :-)

 

The problem is WG decided to ignore the Dido class.

And it was an important (and numerous) class of ships - the earliest AA/multi-role cruiser built. And there's plenty of variation within them for premium options even. 

End result: you have this over-tiered tree of cruisers with little difference between them.

I guess the rapid-firing Atlanta and Russian cruisers were too much to stomach already.

 

[Carl]

 

But nowhere near as much difficulty as the Russian and German trees.

Less fantasy needed than both. And the few paper designs are no worse.

 

And....

 

We got those first because WG'ing didn't get the blueprints till after the KM where otu and the RU where well in dev. In fact the RN Cruisers were supposed to come in the place the RU crusiers did in release order, but blueprint acquisition delays threw that out the porthole.

 

Also what does Dido have to do with anything?

[ArmouredCarriers]

 

And....

 

We got those first because WG'ing didn't get the blueprints till after the KM where otu and the RU where well in dev. In fact the RN Cruisers were supposed to come in the place the RU crusiers did in release order, but blueprint acquisition delays threw that out the porthole.

 

Also what does Dido have to do with anything?

 

Well, the whole bluprint thing just sounds like [edited]. But if you want to swallow the corporate line, go for it.

But as Wargaming keeps telling us: This is not a simulator.

And you can see that in their RN cruisers models. They're not historically accurate representations of any refit. And each design has their own distortion... perhaps for 'balance' - just like Iowa and Montana's high citadel armour, as the most obvious example.

 

As for Didos...

Dido were British light cruisers entering service about 1939. In stock form they had 10x 5.25in guns in five turrets, though about half had eight and two had 8x 4.5in (with heavier light armament and radar outfits). 

While not specific purpose AA cruisers, AA was one of their core responsibilities.

The repeated complaint in this thread is that the RN cruisers all feel the same. I suspect because so many of them use the same model 6in gun, four-turret configuration (Leander through Minotaur)

 

So what Dido has to do with it is it could have offered a different flavour in the RN tree based on reality, not fantasy.

[Carl]

 

So what Dido has to do with it is it could have offered a different flavour in the RN tree based on reality, not fantasy.

 

Right but where could it have gone. Oh right. yeah. Sorry but Dido fits nowhere in the tree. You could justifiably bump Edinburgh or Fiji out without losing an entire ship, but the Dido's are british Atlanta's basically and i strongly doubt they'd work at T7 anymore than Atlanta does.

 

As for Samey, tell that to IJn cruisers stuffed with 8" guns from T5-T10.

[ArmouredCarriers]

 

Right but where could it have gone. Oh right. yeah. Sorry but Dido fits nowhere in the tree. You could justifiably bump Edinburgh or Fiji out without losing an entire ship, but the Dido's are british Atlanta's basically and i strongly doubt they'd work at T7 anymore than Atlanta does.

 

As for Samey, tell that to IJn cruisers stuffed with 8" guns from T5-T10.

 

Actually, Atlanta's are US Didos - being built some three years after the RN ships.

 

WoWS can wave its magic gimmick wand and put Dido where they want.

I would imagine it could be stretched or squished anywhere between T5 and T7.

 

And sorry, if any rapid firing cruiser can fit in the tree, so can a Dido.

(Lets face it - they can put anything in game now they have Graf Spee. Doesn't fit line doesn't cut it anymore. They just may need to put in some effort)

 

Losing Edinburgh would be no loss. Massage a Fiji model a little and make it a heavier Southampton, and you have a free T7 slot.

Not hard if you put your mind to it (and WoWS big bad bag of gimmicks)

[Ujenele]

I understand that the main British cruiser rationale was to cover the empire with light cruisers because of the expense so we see fewer heavy cruisers in their repertoire, but they did build a few good heavy cruisers, certainly worth adding a couple, say one from the County class and one from the York Class. I'm not understanding why these were omitted, but adding these ships and removing a few repeaters (ships that are so similar to the one before or after) would make the game all the more smashing!

 

Yeah because going from Cleveland to Pensacola was a smashing succes for the player base

[Dreddnort]

 

Yeah because going from Cleveland to Pensacola was a smashing succes for the player base

 

The Ceveland is a puzzle for me, in many ways it was superior to the Pensacola, better armor (though WoW has it made of paper, my Pensacola can take more hits than my Cleveland, both are built out), could throw out far more shells in a minute (6"and 5"), it's continuos broadside was legendary. Though a 8" barrage is undeniable, but I would still put the Cleveland after the Pensacola.

[mr3awsome]

The Ceveland is a puzzle for me, in many ways it was superior to the Pensacola, better armor (though WoW has it made of paper, my Pensacola can take more hits than my Cleveland, both are built out), could throw out far more shells in a minute (6"and 5"), it's continuos broadside was legendary. Though a 8" barrage is undeniable, but I would still put the Cleveland after the Pensacola.

Cleveland remaining where it is is one of the longest serving errors in the game. 

[Carl]

 

Actually, Atlanta's are US Didos - being built some three years after the RN ships.

 

WoWS can wave its magic gimmick wand and put Dido where they want.

I would imagine it could be stretched or squished anywhere between T5 and T7.

 

And sorry, if any rapid firing cruiser can fit in the tree, so can a Dido.

(Lets face it - they can put anything in game now they have Graf Spee. Doesn't fit line doesn't cut it anymore. They just may need to put in some effort)

 

Losing Edinburgh would be no loss. Massage a Fiji model a little and make it a heavier Southampton, and you have a free T7 slot.

Not hard if you put your mind to it (and WoWS big bad bag of gimmicks)

 

Again no it wouldn't. 27k health does not work at T7+, and health is set based on displacement. The dido's for obvious reasons would be no longer ranged or tougher than the atlanta's and those two facts are what makes atlanta one of the worst performing cruiser in the whole game.

 

Despite what people like to believe WoWs doesn't magically make stats up out of thin air, most are based on some historical attribute of the ship, range is director height, detection is masthead height, health is displacement, TDS is torp bulge depth, and so on and so forth. The Dido's are locked into stats totally unsuited to T7+ by those factors.

[Kizarvexis]

I have some thoughts.

 

I've read speculation here that WG will split the US CL/CA into CL only line with a sub line of CA. With the line splits for DDs proposed and splits for at least the US BB line speculated about, I would expect this to happen for other nations cruiser lines as well. So maybe instead of making a mixed British line and then splitting, they tried a monolithic line to see if that would work better and would like to add a CA line later. It sure seems like a lot of people are upset over the IJN DD split, so at least this would be different.

 

As for Dido, maybe there is a plan to make it a premium. There is only the Belfast as a premium British cruiser for now. According to the wiki, there are 6 IJN, 6 US, 7 RU, 2 German and 1 Commonwealth premiums. At least the Dido as a premium would be a different ship that what is in the tech tree right?

 

 

 

 

[Eisennagel]

I understand that the main British cruiser rationale was to cover the empire with light cruisers because of the expense so we see fewer heavy cruisers in their repertoire, but they did build a few good heavy cruisers, certainly worth adding a couple, say one from the County class and one from the York Class. I'm not understanding why these were omitted, but adding these ships and removing a few repeaters (ships that are so similar to the one before or after) would make the game all the more smashing!

 

 

They only have three heavy cruiser classes and even then, they were badly outdated.  We are talking about having the best of them still having three smoke stacks sticking out, which is like so World War I in architecture.

 

The British arrived to the conclusion heavy cruisers won't benefit them and its better to have light cruisers.  Its not just about covering the empire, its the fact that you can elevate the 6" guns to a degree you can use them as AA (even though said guns lack the RoF and turret traverse to be effective on that role).  

 

The key difference between the Edinburgh and the earlier Town class light cruisers is a new turret design with square edge and cuts in the corner of the turret that allows the guns to point all the way up.  This turret was fitted on later light cruisers, including the Fiji and yes the Fiji besides being Tier 7, also came **after** the Edinburghs in chronological order.

 

Its not only the British who thought that heavy cruisers were not useful.  The Russians too, which explains why the Kirov and Molotov came before the cruisers with 152mm guns.  This explains why Chapayev and Sverdlov came after the Kirovs and its subclasses. It also explains why the top tier Soviet heavy cruisers, though designed, were never made.  Heck the Soviets defined the Kirovs as light cruisers till their naval agreements with the British forced them to be regarded as heavy cruisers, forcing the Soviets to create a crash program to design a 152mm gun that resulted in the gun you see in Tier 6 to 8 of the Russian tree.  Because the Soviets only wanted light cruisers, and wanted something to properly fit in that category.  The Kirov and her sisters, including subclasses like the Molotov, were the only Soviet heavy cruisers to ever sail the seas.

 

Note the Soviets don't have an overseas empire like the British and yet came to the same conclusion.

 

The Germans also don't have a huge overseas empire, but guess what, their admiralty didn't like 8" gun heavy cruisers.  They only have one heavy cruiser class, and that one, with only five ships planned, only finished three, the other two being replanned as light cruisers with 12 x 150mm guns.  I am talking about the Hipper class.  This also explains why the other three German heavy cruisers are paper ships.    Because they don't like heavy cruisers.  They thought the cruiser functionality can be filled by light cruisers (e.g. M class cruisers) and Panzerschiffe type cruisers (D and P class), and eventually, battlecruisers (O class).  Furthermore when the Hipper messed up on the Barents Sea, she spent the war on a decommissioned state  after the Fuhrer wanted to send her to the scrap heap.  Some honor was regained for the German heavy cruiser when the Prinz Eugen along with the Admiral Sheer did the most prodigious naval bombardment in history, when they shelled the Russian army as it advanced through the Baltic, which gave the German army breathing space as they retreated.  

 

For the British to get more heavy cruisers past the County class, you will have to be using paper ships.  That means taking drawings from archives, filling them up to make them real.  That's a lot of creative work.

 

By now, for those with sense, they have come to the correct conclusion that the greatest enemy of the cruiser is not another surface ship, but aircraft and submarines.  More British cruisers were lost to aircraft than other means, and when they are sunk by surface action, its by destroyers and torpedoboats, which again points to fast firing small caliber guns to be a better choice.

 

 

 

 

 

[mr3awsome]

They only have one heavy cruiser class, and that one, with only five ships planned, only finished three, the other two being replanned as light cruisers with 12 x 150mm guns.  I am talking about the Hipper class. 

The Seydlitz and the Lutzow started as Light Cruisers, but went to being Heavy Cruisers later on. 

[Phoenix_jz]

I have some thoughts.

 

I've read speculation here that WG will split the US CL/CA into CL only line with a sub line of CA. With the line splits for DDs proposed and splits for at least the US BB line speculated about, I would expect this to happen for other nations cruiser lines as well. So maybe instead of making a mixed British line and then splitting, they tried a monolithic line to see if that would work better and would like to add a CA line later. It sure seems like a lot of people are upset over the IJN DD split, so at least this would be different.

 

As for Dido, maybe there is a plan to make it a premium. There is only the Belfast as a premium British cruiser for now. According to the wiki, there are 6 IJN, 6 US, 7 RU, 2 German and 1 Commonwealth premiums. At least the Dido as a premium would be a different ship that what is in the tech tree right?

 

 

 

 

 

AC, the CL line is more likely to be a sub-line, for lack of a tier X CL. The CA line, meanwhile, as Does Moines, that is quite good where it is

[Kizarvexis]

 

AC, the CL line is more likely to be a sub-line, for lack of a tier X CL. The CA line, meanwhile, as Does Moines, that is quite good where it is

 

I'd be fine with that.

[Fireball_XL5]

This talk of waiting for sub tier for British Heavy Cruisers is crap. The other nations have both light and heavy cruisers in their existing lines so WG will have to split them off later so the same could have been done with the British line. Yes Britain only had about 4 Heavy Cruiser class but that would have given us tier 7,8,9 and 10. About the same as the other nations I believe. WG will do it however they want to but this is how I would like to have seen it.