Maybe someday(Italian Battleships)

[legoboy0401]

I'm sorry, I know I should be all hyped up for British Battleships, but I'm more hyped for Courbet(French Tier III or IV BB) and Dante Alighieri(Italian Tier III or IV BB) than for the brits. I'm sorry, but these ships look genuinely interesting. Most of the British dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts look mediocre and boring, like they don't put too much new on the table.

 

These ships, on the other hand, along with Italian BBs in general, look to have new and intriguing playstyles that could change the way we think about playing Battleships. They are sexy, at least two classes introduce a new caliber, and they are rather storied as well.

 

Personally, I really don't think most the British BBs look very good. Hood and Warspite look okay, the Nelsons, HMS Vanguard, and the King George Vs look splendid indeed, but they don't look very interesting or fun to play. 

 

The Italian BBs not only have good curves and nice looking turrets and bridges from the get-go, but they have eye-popping, glorious camouflage just BEGGING to be looked at in detail. Emanuele Filberto Duca D'Aosta has the gorgeous candy-cane aerial-recognition camo, right? Well, so will Premium Littorio-class BB Roma. Their high-angle 90 mm guns on the later hulls look imposing too.

 

To be honest, I just want a new BB that plays differently, is storied, and looks good, too. That standard is what the Italian BBs promise.

 

How about you guys? Any guesses as to when Roma will come on the scene, or when they might release the Italian BBs?

 

(Yes, I know people have already gone over the Italian BB possible tech tree at length, but I wanted to discuss my own opinions on them, and why I look forward to them more than the British BBs.)

[tcbaker777]

yes, some day mah boi, some day

[Wolcott]

Most of the British dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts look mediocre and boring, like they don't put too much new on the table.

 

Don't judge a book by its cover.

[YamatoA150]

Going by past "teaser" battleships (Tirpitz and Dunkerque), Roma will probably appear around Fall or Winter 2017, alongside or before the RN CVs, giving players a few months until the Italians begin showing up in 2018 in full.  Of course, if we're lucky, WG would release Roma alongside the French BBs, which may appear around Summer-Fall instead.

 

As for the Italian BB line?  I'm guessing Winter 2018 or early 2019.  Reasoning being that WG would want to finish off the British with a DD line, as well as finishing off the French with another DD line, then get the Italians started at the very least with a cruiser line, squeezing in the Italian BBs if those also were near-complete by then.  That's 4 full lines within their average yearly output, assuming no major splits or delays.

 

More realistically though, I'm guessing Russian BBs in Winter 2018 of the Italian BBs, with further reasoning below.

 

My estimated timeline for 2018:

- British DDs in Q1 - Just to infuse more DDs after a BB heavy 2017, and RN DDs in general being the second most requested RN line.

- Italian Cruisers in Q2 - Assuming no troubles with coming up with a full line, and to add another new cruiser line to ameliorate the presumably DD heavy 2018 schedule.

- French DDs in Q3 - Closing off the French nation and adding in some speedy rivals to VMF DDs.

- Russian BBs in Q4 - Mainly to add another "heavy" class after excitement over the RN and MN BBs fade (or is still going strong).  Also since WG said that the VMF BB line was delayed to 2018, but that they had been doing some on-and-off work on them between priority lines/Premiums.

 

If the Italian BBs come at all in 2018, they may debut somewhere after the Italian cruisers, before or after the Russian BBs.  They could just as easily be delayed to early/middle 2019 with Italian DDs coming ahead of them.  Just depends on how much side-work WG had done into the Italian ships outside of the planned Premiums by 2018 (I'm doubtful, since they had only begun data collection late last year/early this year).