What role would the Nelson fill compared to the other T7 battleships?

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

As of now:

Scharnhorst and Gneiseneau-specialized brawlers

Nagato-sniper

Colorado-semi-jack-of-all-trades, master of none (mid-range?)

 

I wonder what role the Nelson would fill compared to the Tier 7 battleships currently in the game. Stats wise (Warships Today), which of these current Tier 7 battleships will it be the closest to?

 

I predict that she will be a mid range platform, meaning that her ideal engagement ranges are 11-16 kilometres. She can go closer than that if needed but she will likely lose to a German BB one-on-one.

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

Accurate guns with good sigma value like the Warspite, decent armor, decent maneuverability, 30s reload? ~760m / s shell velocity.

[ckupf]

Accurate guns with good sigma value like the Warspite, decent armor, decent maneuverability, 30s reload? ~760m / s shell velocity.

 

Yeah medium long range sniper like the Warspite.

 

Closest tech tree line is IJN, with a little bit of USN mixed in. 

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

I think it would be close to USN than IJN. Not a stellar sniper, not a very good brawler, mid-range fighter. I'm predicting a slighter higher average WR than the Colorado and around 47k average damage.

[mofton]

790m/s shell velocity as far as I know.

 

We don't know a lot of things, but as far as I'm aware so far all premium battleships have had the same dispersion/range ratio as the tech tree cousins. If that holds true for Warspite/Brits then they won't be as good as the IJN at range unless they get the superior sigma. Warspite could be an outlier meaning the RN might brawl at some tiers. Nelson, maybe - being able to switch gun sides quickly while bow in is an advantage. Her armor is pretty good. Her secondaries are distinctly average. She does get 9 guns. I would try and stay away from the Germans, probably pound the Colorado, and close Nagato if I could.

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

@mofton Similar analysis to mine. In the Colorado, 80% of the time I lose to German BBs one-on-one unless I get support or if the other player's potato. If a Scharnhorst or Gneiseneau is hell bent on killing me I can't run from them, and those secondaries give me a pounding. Nagatos are very fragile when they give broadside, I can citadel them easily from mid-range. Other Colorados simply aren't a threat.

[SireneRacker]

I think Nelson will be a ship with a weaponry comparable to Amagi: full Alpha Strike. With that armament she probably outguns the Bismarck and all the other T7 ships. Bow in tanker, acceptable Secondaries and decent armor, so she will pay with either her maneuverability or her reload.

[dseehafer]

Nelson is kind of interesting, she's slightly faster than Colorado (23kn compared to 21kn) but is slightly longer, so what she gains in speed she loses in turning radius. She's also slightly slower than Nagato (25kn) but is shorter and about as fat as Nagato, so what she loses in speed she gains in turning radius.

 

Her guns individually aren't quite as impressive as Colorado's and Nagato's but she has one extra gun to make up for it. Reload will probably be 30s. Historical turret traverse speed is 4 degrees per second, nearly identical to Nagato's 3.8 degrees per second in-game.

 

Her secondary firepower only beats out the Colorado (Nelson = 9 secondary guns per broadside, Colorado = 8). Not the best but not the worst.

 

AA depends on what configuration WG puts her in. It has the potential to be average but also has the potential to be quite good (late war AA loadout included a healthy amount of bofors and oerlikons). In any event, the long range AA battery stays the same, and it's not all that impressive (Only 6x 120mm guns, the least amount of long range AA guns among tier 7 battleships).

 

Nelson has no catapult, so she has no fighter/spotter. Rodney did have a catapult installed on the roof of her rearmost main battery turret in 1936 but this was removed during the early years of the war. I doubt it will make an appearance in-game as no ship in-game has a catapult on a turret roof even if it had one historically (see Wyoming, NY, Texas and Arizona).

 

By 1945 Nelson weighed 44,054t fully loaded. This is just shy of Nagato's in-game weight of 45,816t. If Nelson weighs at least 44,000t in game she'll almost certainly have the second most hitpoints among current tier 7 battleships. Probably in the neighborhood of 62,000 hitpoints.

 

Armor is most comparable to Colorado, though slightly better. Nelson is a tall and bulky target, she sit's quite high in the water and is relatively compact like Alabama. Translation: If you hit, you're probably hitting something important as there's not much free space on her stern or aft.

 

 

TLDR: Nelson is very well balanced at tier 7. She is a mix between Colorado and Nagato in terms of hard statistics. Her biggest pros are having 9x16" guns, a good hitpoint pool and decent armor. her biggest cons are her limited rear firing arcs, poor shell velocity, and her pitiful long range AA. Things that are "meh" about Nelson include her speed and maneuverability and the fact that she's a rather bulky target.

[Big_Spud]

The design itself is very heavily internal belt sloped back at about 18 degrees (much like Iowa). 35.6 cm abreast the magazines (which is the entire front half of the citadel length) and 33 cm over the machinery. There is no real internal armored deck to speak of, so the belt and main armor deck will probably all be considered citadel space. Belt ends just below the waterline with the anti-torpedo bulkhead set back several meters behind it (which will also probably be the citadel wall). The forward bulkhead is 30.5 cm above the waterline and 20.3 cm below it. Decks are 15.9 cm over the magazines/machinery and 9.52 cm over the steering gear spaces. Barbettes are 38.1 cm above the main deck, and 30.5 cm below. The turrets are decently well protected with a relatively flat 40.6 cm face. The TDS is designed to resist a 340 kg charge, which should put it at around 30% damage reduction ingame. It would be higher, but WG seems to really only like using torpedo bulges as a metric of a systems effectiveness. The ships were fairly heavy by the end of the war (in the 44,000 tons range), so HP would probably be about 60,000.

 

 

Just from looking at the armor (and likely citadel placement), it looks more like a mid range performer, especially with the lackluster 16" guns she carries, which are closer in power to the 14" guns on most tier VI battleships than they are to Nagato/Colorados rifles. Her turrets are all mounted forwards of course, which avoids the Izumo syndrome of having to wait for the third turret to rotate all the way around in order for it to engage a target on the other side. They actually have quite good angles for "over the shoulder" firing as well, much like Dunkerque. Nelson should be wiggle capable between reloads for baiting shots into her belt. Range would hopefully be about 18km, which is the current low-end standard for tier 7. The only real problem I can see is her poor rate of fire, which sometimes exceeded 45 seconds. Ingame this will probably be between 34 and 32 seconds. Traverse was historically 4 degrees per second, which means 45s for 180 degrees. Not too bad.

 

The secondary armament isn't terrible, but its not great either. There are three twin mount 6" gun turrets per side (with a practical rate of fire of around 5 RPM on a good day) backed up by a further three 4.7" dual purpose guns(with a practical rate of fire of about 10). The 6" guns have a muzzle velocity of  884 mps and will probably be firing HE or "common" shells (which are basically HE with a tiny penetration potential), the 4.7" guns have a muzzle velocity of 750 mps an will also probably be slinging HE . All of the mountings apart from the rearmost 4.7" guns have decent angles of fire off the sides, and good concentration to the rear (much like Dunkerque again). A secondary spec would in theory be quite powerful. It depends on if the 6" guns actually fire HE though. If they fire AP, then it will not be that great for secondary builds.

 

Anti-aircraft is a mixed bag of whatever the hell WG feels like giving them. Each ship had no fewer than 10 forms of AA armament starting from 1938 all the way to 1945. Their final forms had around seventy 20mm Oerlikons, six octuple pom-poms, and four quadruple Bofors mounts. Long range AA will definitely suck because its only six single mount 4.7" guns, but mid-close range would be quite strong (much like Colorado).

 

Maneuverability would be anyone's guess. Talk to the normal ship enthusiast and you might hear horror stories about how ungodly bad at handling they were. Read the accounts of the captains of them and you get the sense that they simply needed some getting used to, and ended up being quite responsive ships. What we do know is the speed, 23 knots. That puts it at the 2nd slowest in tier, just ahead of Colorado at 21 knots. A realistic guess for rudder shift/tactical radius would be somewhere between Nagato and Colorado.

 

 

All in all I would assume they are good at mid range skirmishing with the bow pointed forwards like Dunkerque, but needing aggressive angling to make up for the fact that the frontal bulkhead isn't that strong versus tier 7+ guns with how the overmatch mechanics function. However since the entire belt should in theory be a citadel hitbox, you would need to maintain it juuuust right to avoid getting citpenned into oblivion. It would probably be wise to avoid going broadside when possible, although the belt armor itself should hold up well at range.

 

 

Edit: I basically just took 10 more minutes to say exactly what dseehafer did.

[SergeantHop]

Nelson is kind of interesting, she's slightly faster than Colorado (23kn compared to 21kn) but is slightly longer, so what she gains in speed she loses in turning radius. She's also slightly slower than Nagato (25kn) but is shorter and about as fat as Nagato, so what she loses in speed she gains in turning radius.

 

Her guns individually aren't quite as impressive as Colorado's and Nagato's but she has one extra gun to make up for it. Reload will probably be 30s. Historical turret traverse speed is 4 degrees per second, nearly identical to Nagato's 3.8 degrees per second in-game.

 

Her secondary firepower only beats out the Colorado (Nelson = 9 secondary guns per broadside, Colorado = 8). Not the best but not the worst.

 

AA depends on what configuration WG puts her in. It has the potential to be average but also has the potential to be quite good (late war AA loadout included a healthy amount of bofors and oerlikons). In any event, the long range AA battery stays the same, and it's not all that impressive (Only 6x 120mm guns, the least amount of long range AA guns among tier 7 battleships).

 

Nelson has no catapult, so she has no fighter/spotter. Rodney did have a catapult installed on the roof of her rearmost main battery turret in 1936 but this was removed during the early years of the war. I doubt it will make an appearance in-game as no ship in-game has a catapult on a turret roof even if it had one historically (see Wyoming, NY, Texas and Arizona).

 

By 1945 Nelson weighed 44,054t fully loaded. This is just shy of Nagato's in-game weight of 45,816t. If Nelson weighs at least 44,000t in game she'll almost certainly have the second most hitpoints among current tier 7 battleships. Probably in the neighborhood of 62,000 hitpoints.

 

Armor is most comparable to Colorado, though slightly better. Nelson is a tall and bulky target, she sit's quite high in the water and is relatively compact like Alabama. Translation: If you hit, you're probably hitting something important as there's not much free space on her stern or aft.

 

 

TLDR: Nelson is very well balanced at tier 7. She is a mix between Colorado and Nagato in terms of hard statistics. Her biggest pros are having 9x16" guns, a good hitpoint pool and decent armor. her biggest cons are her limited rear firing arcs and her pitiful long range AA. Things that are "meh" about Nelson include her speed and maneuverability, poor shell velocity and the fact that she's a rather bulky target.

 

I think her biggest biggest pro is being able to get all 9 guns on target while showing very little side. It looks like not much more than 20 or so degrees will get you a full broadside. This, of course, is relevant to my interests.

[dseehafer]

 

I think her biggest biggest pro is being able to get all 9 guns on target while showing very little side. It looks like not much more than 20 or so degrees will get you a full broadside. This, of course, is relevant to my interests.

 

Indeed

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[dseehafer]

 

 

Edit: I basically just took 10 more minutes to say exactly what dseehafer did.

 

If it makes you feel any better, you did a fine job of detailing her armor layout and secondary armament firepower. 

[Big_Spud]

Only thing I'm REALLY wondering about is the citadel placement.

 

 

Because right now it looks like the entire belt would be considered to be part of the citadel. There's almost no internal armor subdivision that I can see on any of the drawings. The only exception I could see is if WG decided to count the 3.8 cm torpedo bulkhead as the citadel, as it extends all the way to the bottom of the armor deck behind the magazine. If thats the case, then you would need to penetrate 35.6cm + 3.8 cm abreast the magazines to get a cit, or 33 cm + 3.8 cm abreast the machinery. Going broadside at close range would still probably mean a swift death.

 

You can see the bulkhead in question here:

 

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

I hope it gets a 2.0 sigma value like the Colorado, Nagato, Warspite, and Scharnhorst. When going up the USN BB line, I dreaded getting the Colorado after having a good time in the New Mexico. However, the post-buff Colorado has been a pleasant shock. My first battle in it (upgraded hull) I got 90k damage with a Confederate. I've since played 114 battles in it averaging 59k damage, a 2.42 KD, 1.23 ship kill ratio and 1.54 plane kill. When RNG favors me it's nothing short of a citadel machine. I've gotten quite a few matches with over 110k damage. This morning I got 111k damage with a Kraken, and this evening I got a 131k match. Unfortunately both were losses. It's the vessel that has given me the most Confederate medals to date. Sometimes the dispersion still makes me go wthand it struggles when up-tiered, but in Tier 5-7 matches it's a beast. If I can replicate the success in the Nelson I'd be pleased.

[dseehafer]

Only thing I'm REALLY wondering about is the citadel placement.

 

-snip-

 

Because right now it looks like the entire belt would be considered to be part of the citadel. There's almost no internal armor subdivision that I can see on any of the drawings. Going broadside at close range would probably mean a swift death.

 

You're probably right. The silver lining is that the Belt does not come quite as far up out of the water as KGV's... poor thing.

 

 

 

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

How I play the Colorado AKA Lolorado: In the early stages of the match I sail at 12-15 kilometers, where I can hit enemy cruisers and battleships with relative ease. I've one-shotted Pensacolas (well, it's the Pensacola) on numerous occasions and last night I one shot a Myoko from 17 km. Towards the middle of the match I close to 8-10 kilometers, if unlucky some German BB closes to 6-7 kilometers from me and I have to pray for it to give broadside. I ask for support when dealing with German BBs. I usually try to kite away, and for most of the match I'm 10-13km from the enemy.

[dseehafer]

@Big_Spud. I'm almost positive WG will include the torpedo bulkhead as part of the armor protection for the citadel. That is the case with all ships in game (that I'm aware of) that have a longitudinal bulkhead aka torpedo bulkhead (Ships include, but are not limited to, every German battleship, Dunkerque, Fuso, Graf Spee, NC and Warspite)

[Big_Spud]

 

You're probably right. The silver lining is that the Belt does not come quite as far up out of the water as KGV's... poor thing.

 

 -snip-

 

 

 

The only caveat being Nelsons belt is so scandalously short that any sort of turn is going to give such a clear upskirt shot at her citadel through the torpedo bulkhead that it would put most celebrities to shame. I don't doubt for a second that heavy cruisers will be able to land citpens on her if they time a salvo right during a turn.

[mr3awsome]

You're probably right. The silver lining is that the Belt does not come quite as far up out of the water as KGV's... poor thing.

 

It doesn't go as far below the water line as KGV either. 

Diving shells might make quick work of Nelson. If you can get beneath the belt theres only a 38mm bulkhead and some smaller (0.75"?) ones protecting the citadel. 

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

A BB that get penned hard by CAs....... But it has happened to me in the Colorado. Higher tier CAs have penned me for a respectable amount of damage.

[Big_Spud]

@Big_Spud. I'm almost positive WG will include the torpedo bulkhead as part of the armor protection for the citadel. That is the case with all ships in game (that I'm aware of) that have a longitudinal bulkhead aka torpedo bulkhead (Ships include, but are not limited to, every German battleship, Dunkerque, Fuso, Graf Spee, NC and Warspite)

 

I actually went and checked the more detailed drawings in Friedmans "The British Battleship", specifically the diagram on page 239. The section up behind the main belt is only .75", not the full 1.5" on the torpedo bulkhead below it. I'm not certain that WG would consider the thickness enough to separate it from the main belt. I think the belt itself will probably be considered the citadel wall. Even if they did model it separate from the belt, any battleship gun in the game is going to autopen it from any angle. In effect nothing would change.

 

[Grand_Commander_LuXun]

DO you guys feel that the Nelson will be a fairly popular BB for its tier? Also, will they ever fix the MM for Tiers 5 and 6?

[Big_Spud]

DO you guys feel that the Nelson will be a fairly popular BB for its tier? Also, will they ever fix the MM for Tiers 5 and 6?

 

Depending on how they balance the soft stats (like sigma value, reload, etc), I would probably play it a lot for its unique style. Of course I'll get it just for collection purposes, but I hope its a good ship ingame as well!

[SireneRacker]

DO you guys feel that the Nelson will be a fairly popular BB for its tier? Also, will they ever fix the MM for Tiers 5 and 6?

 

Yes and No.

[dseehafer]

 

I actually went and checked the more detailed drawings in Friedmans "The British Battleship", specifically the diagram on page 239. The section up behind the main belt is only .75", not the full 1.5" on the torpedo bulkhead below it. I'm not certain that WG would consider that thickness enough to separate it from the main belt.

 

Is this .75" section you're describing above the armor deck and connecting to the upper deck with the torpedo bulkhead being directly below it and connecting to the bottom of the hull? Or is it only the height of the armor belt? If it is the former than it will most likely not be modeled in-game as Bismarck and Tirpitz also had a similar longitudinal bulkhead arranged in this fashion and it is not present on the in-game model (probably because it would lead to more 33s from shells coming through the upper belt).

 

Edit: The 30mm longitudinal bulkhead circled in black is what I'm referring to.