Do battlecruisers belong in the battleship tree? Should they eat a BB slot in battle?

[Battleship_Unknown2]

So, I was derailing my own thread with this debate about BCs, and decided to shift gears and give it a life of its own. Yes, I know that this subject has been broached before, but the forum population seems to be rising almost by the day (I see a lot of new faces asking old questions), and I think this topic, in particular, is important enough to take another stab at.

 

To put it simply, there seems to be a lot of confusion about the differences between battleships and battlecruisers, and what exactly their role was IRL (and what it should be in WoWS). This confusion is understandable: the vessels were often of similar size, fielded the same caliber of guns, and even looked like each other. However, in this case, it is important to bypass the issue of aesthetics and get at the nitty-gritty: what are the actual differences here, and are they broad enough to warrant giving BCs their own tree?

 

Before I get into background, I want to say that I, to a degree, understand merging BBs and BCs into one tree from a design (though not a gameplay) standpoint. While Britain, Germany and Japan all possessed enough BCs (or BC plans) to constitute a fully-fleshed-out BC tree, other nationalities (the U.S., Italy and Russia) would struggle mightily to field the same. Italy, for example, never constructed a single BC (they favored, however, fast battleship concepts from the start). Russia had a few early BCs (and designed a few more prior-to-and-during WWII), while America designed the Lexingtons and actually built the Alaskas.

 

However, when it comes down to gameplay itself, I detest the idea of 17 or 18 (or whatever the total winds up being) players queing up for a match and then having the, say, 4 people picking battleships be forced to choose between BBs and BCs. What I most fear as a battlecruiser proponent is that A) if such a choice is forced on players, battlecruisers will generally be misused, leading to higher casualties, and B) that battlecruisers will, ultimately, come to be viewed as less valuable units than battleships, and those of us who favor them will be transformed into pariahs when our 'auto-sinkers' line up and die after 5 minutes.

 

This may, however, leave a lot of you saying 'I don't care, Princess Royal -- I'm playing on sailing a light cruiser; what the heck does it matter to me what BBs and BCs do; what role they fulfill; and what tree the end up in?' It matters because, if BCs are statted anything like their real-life counterparts, they're going to be completely different animals from BBs, and they're going to be very vulnerable when attempting to do the same things as a battleship. As a result, you may also -- if the system launches as I fear it will -- become one of the players groaning loudly when Joe Sixpack queues up in a battlecruiser, shouting things like 'MAN! You're going to screw us, Joe! Sail a friggin' battleship, newb!' In reality, Joe should be performing a very important and different role with his BC.

 

To put it plainly: battlecruiser captains shouldn't be 'taking the bread out of anyone's mouth' -- they should constitute a special and unique fighting force as important in any match as destroyers or heavy cruisers.

 

***

 

Let's go into a bit of background to discover why the people who feel strongly about this issue:

 

Back in 1904, Admiral Jacky Fisher became first sea lord in Great Britain, which is, in a nutshell, the second in command of the Royal Navy, and the chief commissioned officer operating beneath the first lord of the admiralty. Fisher, after becoming an admiral in 1890, had twice utilized the 'second blass battleship' HMS Renown as his flagship. Although Renown was small for the era and lacked striking power (carrying 4 x 10" guns when 4 x 12" was the norm), she was 1-2 knots faster that other predreadnoughts. It was around this time that Fisher began to develop his ideas that would become Dreadnought, as well as HMS Invincible, the first battlecruiser (Fisher's working names for the two were HMS Incomparable and HMS Unapproachable, which provides additional insight into his thinking [the name Incomparable was later resurrected for a design of never-built super BCs]).

 

Basically, Fisher developed two competing ideals on what should constitute a capital warship (and as first sea lord, he possessed the power to make them real). The first was a heavily-armed and armored titan that, in light of the battle experience gleaned from the Japanese victory at Tsushima, would dispose of all secondary armament and fight an enemy fleet at great range. The second ship -- the one that evolved to become the battlecruiser -- was built on an alternative theory.

 

You see, during the 1890s and early 1900s, there was a great debate raging over whether or not armored cruisers belonged in the line of battle. Though not as large, heavily armed or well-armored as battleships, armored cruisers could augment the weight of shell thrown by a fleet. And, at Tsushima, the Japanese used them to great effect. This debate carried over into the realm of the battlecruiser, tainting it. The BC, as Fisher conceived of it, would be the ultimate armored cruiser killer -- bigger, faster, and throwing far heavier shells. The ship could catch and sink any cruiser afloat, and was designed to break up the scouting wing of an enemy fleet (as well as destroy rogue surface raiders) while pressing home reconaissance for the Royal Navy.

 

The idea was all well and good except for two problems:

• The first was that battlecruisers, while designed to withstand cruiser-sized gunfire, couldn't repel shells of their own size. Thus, if a battlecruiser encountered another battlecruiser, it would be like eggs running around with sledgehammers -- whoever got that one, critical strike first, won.

• The other problem was the continued confusion over what role armored cruisers should play in a fleet action bled into what to do with BCs. With 12", 13.5" and, ultimately, 15" guns, the battlecruiser stood as much a chance of a battleship of damaging even the heaviest enemy warships.

Thus, if a BC stood in the line of battle, there was a chance she could turn the tide. Unfortunately, if she was targeted by the opposing line, she couldn't 'slug it out,' and would quickly be destroyed. Ergo, there evolved a tempation amongst commanders in WWI (particularly Admiral Beatty, who possessed an almost unimaginable overconfidence in the capability of his ships) to use BCs to take on the enemy battleline.

 

This situation was exacerbated by the personalities in command (Beatty, Winston Churchill, Fisher, and, to a degree, Sir John Jelicoe, simply because he didn't keep his subordinate on a short enough leash), and made even worse by the fact that the British BCs operated in a fully independent fleet from the Grand Fleet: the 'Battlecruiser Force.' We can, of course, partially forgive the people involved for having such high regard for the ships -- they were creations of dash and glory; all speed and hitting power and quickness. But the whole thing finally came to a head at Jutland when Beatty -- his own force deprived of three BCs (they had joined the Grand Fleet to practice gunnery, as the shooting of the battlecruiser force was rotten throughout the war) -- was augmented by Admiral Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas and 4 of the 5 Queen Elizabeth class battleships, who could make 24(ish) knots. With this powerful unit under his command, Beatty feared little from the German line, and when his BCs encountered Hippers', he stormed off in pursuit (leaving the QEs in the dust for quite a while, too), in the process losing two of his ships (HMS Invincible later made it three when she exploded at a different juncture in the battle).

 

After Jutland, the British reaction against the battlecruiser was sharp but, in a sad way, also misguided. Rather lay down rules regarding the future employment of the remaining battlecruisers, they instead attempted to do all they could to modify BCs under construction, armoring them up (and, in the case of Hood, slowing them down) so they more resembled fast battleships. While the British BCs did suffer a problem of anti-flash protection, the designs themselves weren't so much flawed as they were routinely misused... a situation that perpetuated itself when Hood was obliterated by Bismarck nearly 25 years later. In short, the Royal Navy had really learned nothing.

 

But this isn't to say that BCs were worthless. When they were properly deployed (such as against Admiral von Spee's East Asia Squadron at the Battle of the Falklands), the results were crushing -- two enemy armored cruisers sunk, and the victorious British BCs emerging virtually undamaged. If we bring that home to the issue of the Alaskas, they were very much battlecruisers in the traditional sense of the word -- and they also had a focused mission: slaying enemy heavy cruisers (and battlecruisers). Their intent was never to stand in the line of battle; shell shore positions; attack enemy BCs -- just to act as the baddest, fastest ships out there, and sweep the Pacific clean of opposing warships like them.

 

***

 

So that's the backstory. Battlecruisers are not battleships. They are, in essence, 'super scouts;' the final say in pressing home reconaissance against an enemy force. They are also raider-killers (and, in some cases, raiders themselves) -- independent hunters who tread lightly, slaying ships that would shut down allied trade. While this second function probably wouldn't translate well in WoWS, another objective could prove useful -- battlecruisers in the game will theoretically serve as the best flanking force imaginable, and operate independently from their own battle line to head off other battlecruisers, as well as endanger the enemy's precious aircraft carriers.

 

While I don't believe in it myself, a strong argument could be made that BCs don't belong in WoWS at all -- that they were far too much of a niche ship to both implementing them. However, this is directly countered by history itself. Quite simply: battlecruisers were too important in world history to ignore. Thus, they are in the game, and we must find something to do with them. What none of us should want to see is these odd vessels standing in the line of battle. They're going to get sunk, players are going to get pissed, and what you're going to in short order have happen is teammates laying into teammates over their decisions regarding what to sail.

 

The key then, I believe, is to divorce the battlecruiser tree from that of the battleships. If this isn't possible, then battlecruiser 'slots' should be made independent of that of battleships in game. We shouldn't be compelling speedy, ridiculously-lightly-armored battlecruisers to stand in the battle line. We shouldn't be asking battlecruiser captains to stop playing their ships because they're taking up 'valuable battleship spots' when the BCs innevitably get misused.

 

Leave the battleship duties to the battleship players and let the BC players perform their role. Let's stop confusing the two. Let's stop perpetuating the same misguided belief that got Queen Mary, Indefatigable, Invincible and -- most notably -- Hood blown up.

[Super_Dreadnought]

I'd keep them in the battleship line, however give them their own BC sub tree.

 

We know that for the USN at least there will be 2 sub lines of BB to reflect the slow heavily armour behemoths like Montana, and a fast battleship line containing the Iowa. I don't see why this idea cannot be expanded so there is a BC sub sub category for nations with enough plans for fully fleshed out battlecruiser trees.

 

Yes dumb people who do not do their research will misuse them. Even if you put them in their own niche there will still be people who will try to use them as battleships since they look like one. Like WoT not all ships are equal, I say teach players what Battlecruisers do in a tutorial, and let them learn how to use them by themselves afterwards. I can see BCs being a high risk high reward class.

[Windhover118]

I think that Battlecruisers should be part of the battleship branch but I think the branch should split in two with Battlecruisers and fast battleships on one side and standard battleships in the other. However, I dont think that battlecruisers should take up a battleship spot. Instead I think that match maker should treat BB and BC differently with a certain number of spots dedicated to faat and standard battleships and certain number of spots dedicated to BCs.

[ramp4ge]

I honestly think battlecruisers should cap cruiser trees.

 

CLs at low tier, CAs at mid tier, BCs at high tiers.

 

They should occupy a cruiser slot in the game.

 

US cruiser tree for example could go

 

Tier 2: CA-2 Rochester

Tier 3A: CA-3 Brooklyn

Tier 3B: CL-4 Omaha

Tier 4A: CA-4 Pennsylvania

Tier 4B: CL-51 Atlanta

Tier 5A: CA-24 Pensacola

Tier 5B: CA-55 Cleveland

Tier 6A: CA-26 Northampton

Tier 6B: CL-40 Brooklyn

Tier 7A: CA-32 New Orleans

Tier 7B: CA-45 Wichita

Tier 8A: CA-68 Baltimore

Tier 8B: CA-134 Des Moines

Tier 9: CB-1 Alaska

Tier 10: CC-1 Lexngton (1930s refit)

 

Just off the top of my head. I'm sure it could be refined a lot.

 

US has so many freaking ships. I wanted to scoot Alaska down to 8 but I couldn't see doing that without having 3 cruiser routes or leaving out some key ships..

 

Wichita and Des Moines aren't exactly ships you commonly see mentioned but I freaking love them both.

[NGTM_1R]

Should the AMX M4 1945 be in a heavy slot with the IS, IS-2, Tiger, and T29?

 

This is essentially the question being asked here. The answer is yes, one proven to Wargaming and probably to the players by now. There's no reason to assume battlecruisers will work out much different.

[ramp4ge]

I [edited] faces with my AMX M4 1945. The DCA-45 is devastatingly effective on a tier 7 tank. Especially with gold ammo purchased with credits.

 

The only tier 7 tank that I'd say didn't belong at tier 7 is the Comet. It's clearly a tier 6 with lots of health..

[MM2ss]

I see that some have stated that battlecruisers, or other large cruisers of exceptional displacement, should be at the top of the cruiser lines.  I would have to disagree.  A battle cruiser, large cruiser, cruiser of exceptional displacement or whatever else one might call such vessels is clearly far more than a mere CL or CA.  On the other hand they are also far less than a true battleship (meaning a vessel mounting large caliber naval rifles and armored against the same).  The use of a battlecruiser sub-tree or including battlecruisers in a tree of unbalanced battleships (meaning faster than the balanced BB's, but not armored against the weapons they mount) seems to be preferable to me.

 

That being said, I am not certain that a fast battleship or a battlecruiser would properly balance against a balanced BB simply on the basis of speed (I am not also sure if they should balance out either, more armor should provide more time alive and more speed should allow more flexibility and tactics but once shells are flying speed doesn't mean much in and of itself), but we will have to wait and see I suppose.  I can envision a few ways to balance such vessels.  Perhaps by adjusting the value such vessels have in the matchmaker (say three battlecruisers/fast BB are equal to 2 balanced BB's of the same tier for example), including a like number of fast BB's/battlecruisers and balanced BB's in a match, or perhaps some other method.  Then again, if the difference in speed is significant in the sense that such vessels would take proportionally fewer hits so that they ended up balancing against the balanced BBs then that solves all the issues by itself without other adjustments.

[Elouda]

I would say they need to stay in the same tree, because there are too many ships that dont fall into quite either category - Scharnhorst, Iowa, Japanese #13, among others.

 

Remember here that Wargaming has some leeway in how they match battlecruisers due to how the tiers work. What I would expect is that if its found that the mobility isnt compensating enough compared to 'contemporary' battleships (Iowa vs Montana for example), the BCs will simply get bumped down a tier and something more competitive added. This way they will end up against opponents that they will have a slightly easier time with if forced to fight in a battleline, but still being useful for their speed.

[ramp4ge]

Scharnhorst falls into battleship, especially with Gneisenau's rebuild with 14.96" guns.

 

Iowa's a battleship because she was designed to be protected against 16"/45 Mk6s firing the older 2,150lb 16" AP.

 

Germany will have proper "modern" battlecruisers in the P-Project and O-Project. O-Project specifically will have 9 14.96" guns and an awesome secondary battery.

 

You're going to have a hard time fitting CLs and CAs into high tier environments without the lines capping at battlecruisers. A tier 7 or tier 8 CA would be great for screening, intercepting and AA support, and at tier 9 and 10 you have the cruiser killers at the top of the cruiser routes to kill those cruisers.

 

Battlecruisers are, by nature, "pub bullies". Plain and simple. BCs will be this game's BatChat...

[brian333]

References to WoT fail, though, in that the purposes and designs of ships are vastly different than tanks. A Battlecruiser is neither a heavy nor a medium tank. It most closely resembles a big-gun, light-armor TD. But even this comparison fails, because instead of camouflage and positioning, a battlecruiser relies upon speed and maneuverability.

 

Princess has fairly well nailed the concept down. A Battlecruiser is not a larger version of a cruiser, but a purpose built cruiser killer. While a Battlecruiser can add it's powerful guns to the line of battle, it will be rapidly singled out and destroyed in so doing. As a flanker, raider, or cruiser killer the BC will excel, but if it must take a battleship slot to be in game it will effectively gimp the team, because a BC cannot stand up to any battleship.

 

I don't care which tech tree it comes from, to be honest. What worries me, and I think Princess Royal, is that it will be rated as a battleship for matchmaker's purposes, and as such it will be a handicap to it's team when a slower, better armed battleship can stand in the line and take a beating that would quickly destroy a battlecruiser.

[NGTM_1R]

ramp4ge, on 24 February 2013 - 02:19 AM, said:

I [edited] faces with my AMX M4 1945. The DCA-45 is devastatingly effective on a tier 7 tank. Especially with gold ammo purchased with credits.

That's my point. These things aren't hugely incapable. They've got the guns to compete at their tier. Tactical positioning will matter on maps with terrain, so their speed and ability to maneuver count for more than merely evading shells. Their armor is a bit thin but will still grant them a modicum of protection, which is better than can be said for some things which still aren't in line from rebalancing about.

As for brian, pretending the core mechanics of a 2D combat system and its core factors will be radically different, while amusing, isn't helpful. We have terrain factors, position, guns, armor, penetration values...all the good old stuff. From the screenshots, getting there first is going to count because there are chokepoints and the like. A BC that can fight its whole battery vs. a battleship fighting two turrets trying to pass through one of the areas we've seen in game screenshots can win.

(They're not purpose-built cruiser-killers, that's what an Alaska is. A traditional battlecruiser is designed to force an enemy to engage the main battle line by outmanuvering them. They're cavalry, screening your heavies, herding the enemy's.)

[Azumazi]

brian333, on 24 February 2013 - 02:40 AM, said:

I don't care which tech tree it comes from, to be honest. What worries me, and I think Princess Royal, is that it will be rated as a battleship for matchmaker's purposes, and as such it will be a handicap to it's team when a slower, better armed battleship can stand in the line and take a beating that would quickly destroy a battlecruiser.

Yeah and mine as well, I can deal with them being in the battleship tree especially since they already stated they will have a "fast ship" and "slow ship" BB tree branch system so that's okay, what I don't want is to see MM go...okay so one team gets 5 BB's and other team gets 5 BC's, yep...totally =, so lets go!. Second it starts, we already know which side has the better chance of winning, and if that team with the bc's have worse cv players, and as Duke Nukem would say, "crumbled like a **** cookie."

[brian333]

And a single successful volley from the forward firing weapons of said battleship will incapacitate the BC. It simply cannot stand up to battleship caliber weaponry.

[ramp4ge]

Well, when you put it that way, compare a tank with moderate mobility and a good gun but no armor to a tank with moderate mobility, a good gun and armor.

 

T110E5 vs M48A1.

 

The M48A1 is completely pointless because it doesn't do a damn thing that the T110E5 can't do better. It's a little bit more mobile, but it has a gun that's roughly the same capability-wise and lacks anything even resembling armor. And even in the mobility category, it's only more mobile by a marginal degree. It's also wtfHUGE...

 

A battlecruiser filling a battleship slot is the same as the T110E5 vs the M48A1. Especially if it's a battlecruiser filling a fast battleship's slot.

[Azumazi]

ramp4ge, on 24 February 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

Well, when you put it that way, compare a tank with moderate mobility and a good gun but no armor to a tank with moderate mobility, a good gun and armor.

T110E5 vs M48A1.

The M48A1 is completely pointless because it doesn't do a damn thing that the T110E5 can't do better. It's a little bit more mobile, but it has a gun that's roughly the same capability-wise and lacks anything even resembling armor. And even in the mobility category, it's only more mobile by a marginal degree. It's also wtfHUGE...

A battlecruiser filling a battleship slot is the same as the T110E5 vs the M48A1. Especially if it's a battlecruiser filling a fast battleship's slot.

Yes, and Rampage scores one for the team :)

[brian333]

As an additional note: you do not need an entire line from Tier II to Tier X to be represented. Crossover units between the branches would work well. For example, a Lexington at Tier V could be a crossover from Tier IV Heavy Cruiser to Tier VI Fast Battleship, and the Alaska could be a Tier VIII crossover between a Tier VII Heavy Cruiser and a Tier IX Fast Battleship, allowing nations with few Battlecruiser designs to field them, and to slot them into battles appropriately.

[ramp4ge]

Wait there's going to be Fast BB and Slow BB trees?

 

What the hell is US going to have to tier against an Iowa as a "Slow Battleship"? Presumably they'll put the Montana on the Fast Battleship tree, what are they going to put on the "Slow BB" tree?

 

The freaking Tillmans?

 

I'm not quite sure how I'd feel about that actually. 24 16" guns might be fun..

[NGTM_1R]

brian333, on 24 February 2013 - 02:46 AM, said:

And a single successful volley from the forward firing weapons of said battleship will incapacitate the BC. It simply cannot stand up to battleship caliber weaponry.

It must be nice living in a world without abstracted hitpoints and damage models, but that's not the world of the game, which we can be pretty certain will have a hit-point based damage modeling system with modules for critical damage, and as such ships will continue to perform well even after taking heavy hits. (Because degrading capability isn't fun, and what if I told you this is not a simulator according to the devs?) Nor does it necessarily match the world of reality, either, there are plenty of places to hit a ship that will have minimal impact on its ability to fight, and plenty of nominal battlecruiser designs that could take battleship-scale hits; Hood's belt armor, German BCs, etc.

Buying thirty seconds for the destroyers to close under your cover fire would be enough when we're talking about an enclosed space to advance through. Welcome to Surigao. Simply getting there first and being able to pen people can stop an a superior force in its tracks as nobody wants to advance into the fire lane, a phenomenon I've seen in Tanks often enough. The people playing the game aren't going to change that much.

Also, this thread, like so many others, is painfully premature. Do the lines begin with BCs and end with Fast Battleships? Do they have separate BC lines all the way up?

[ramp4ge]

God knows there are enough ships on every conceivable nation to start with tier 1 battleships and go all the way up.

 

For some nations, with multiple trees..

 

I could do 3, perhaps 4 battleship trees for the US alone..

[MM2ss]

ramp4ge, on 24 February 2013 - 02:51 AM, said:

Wait there's going to be Fast BB and Slow BB trees?

What the hell is US going to have to tier against an Iowa as a "Slow Battleship"? Presumably they'll put the Montana on the Fast Battleship tree, what are they going to put on the "Slow BB" tree?

The freaking Tillmans?

I'm not quite sure how I'd feel about that actually. 24 16" guns might be fun..

Montana tops off the balanced BB tree (heavy armor, big guns, slower top speed) and an alternate Iowa design or the normal Iowa looks to be topping off the Fast BB/battlecruiser(big guns, less armor, higher top speed) line.

[ramp4ge]

I thought Iowa was a confirmed teir 9.

 

Montana wasn't exactly slow. At 27/28 knots, she was intended to be just as fast as most of the other "fast battleships".

 

So in Montana, you got Fast Battleship speed (She was just as fast as a KGV, North Carolina or South Dakota, Yamato), protection against her own guns (16"/50 Mk7s with 2,700lb AP) and 12 16"/50 Mk7s..

 

Montana's the ultimate Mary Sue ship..

[Battleship_Unknown2]

NGTM_1R, on 24 February 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

Should the AMX M4 1945 be in a heavy slot with the IS, IS-2, Tiger, and T29?

This is essentially the question being asked here. The answer is yes, one proven to Wargaming and probably to the players by now. There's no reason to assume battlecruisers will work out much different.

Please do not polute my ships thread with tank talk -- those people who don't understand the references will quickly become lost in them, and those who do will derail the entire thing bickering about the qualities of said tracked monstrosities. Comparing vehicles that, at best, are disabled in two hits to warships weighing thousands upon thousands of tons is really not applicable. If you don't know anything about warships and have to employ these analogies, it would be best to read up a little.

Also, in reference to battlecruisers being in the cruiser tree, I believe this is flat-out wrong. If the battlecruiser is closest to any other ship class, it's the armored cruiser -- it is that role that they usurped, and that ship class that they replaced. Amored cruiser's went the way of the do-do precisely because battlecruisers ate them. Both ships were designed for near-identical roles -- to press home renonaissance in the face of heavy resistance, and to defeat lighter forces. The battlecruiser is the armored cruiser evolved... but, in so evolving, it became something different from a cruiser. Heavy cruisers, by comparison, are basically enlarged light cruisers, but follow on the same train of thought and design.

[Azumazi]

ramp4ge, on 24 February 2013 - 03:10 AM, said:

I thought Iowa was a confirmed teir 9.

Montana wasn't exactly slow. At 27/28 knots, she was intended to be just as fast as most of the other "fast battleships".

So in Montana, you got Fast Battleship speed (She was just as fast as a KGV, North Carolina or South Dakota, Yamato), protection against her own guns (16"/50 Mk7s with 2,700lb AP) and 12 16"/50 Mk7s..

Montana's the ultimate Mary Sue ship..

The 1940 Fast Design is going to be the tier 10 over the tier 9 Iowa, it's basically a "Redesigned" Iowa with more armor, hence why he said a redesigned Iowa. Also, Montana at 27 knots would put her in the "slow tree" as Yamato will be the top of the Japanese "Slow" tree at 27 knots.

I'm still digging through the Hiraga Archive to find the a130 designs (5232 pages isn't easy to go through, especially since it isn't listed as anything like a130, and probably in a sub-category) and at most I see it pushing 33 knots to top off the fast Nippon line.

[MM2ss]

ramp4ge, on 24 February 2013 - 03:10 AM, said:

I thought Iowa was a confirmed teir 9.

Montana wasn't exactly slow. At 27/28 knots, she was intended to be just as fast as most of the other "fast battleships".

So in Montana, you got Fast Battleship speed (She was just as fast as a KGV, North Carolina or South Dakota, Yamato), protection against her own guns (16"/50 Mk7s with 2,700lb AP) and 12 16"/50 Mk7s..

Montana's the ultimate Mary Sue ship..

Compare the Montana concept to that of the Iowa and you see some striking differences.  Being as I don't want to go digging through books right now, I'll use wiki (even though I dislike it).

Iowa- 33 knots, 12" belt, 8" deck, Broadside immunity to the AP Mark 8 shell is gained only at ranges of more than 37,000 yards.  Unfortunately she suffers hits that punch through the deck starting at ranges of less than 35,000 yards.  She has no immunity to her own shells.

Montana- 28 knots, 16" belt, 8" deck.  Broadside immunity to the AP Mark 8 shell is gained at about 27,500 yards, the decks are pierced at 35,000 yards, so she has a small immune zone against her own shells (7,500 yards wide).

Thus, the Montana is essentially a balanced design of BB, while the Iowa is not a balanced design.

Admittedly, using the "standard" classification, anything over 21 knots is a "fast" BB.  However, I doubt that that standard will be the one WG uses.  Instead, I tend to think they will look to see is a vessel gives up immunity to its' own guns for speed.  I also believe I read something about not all nations having two lines of capital ships, but I'd have to recheck that.

[Jracule]

+1 for the input. I like your topic, but I did notice one thing.

 

On your poll it states," If battleships *DO* belong in the BB tree, should they take a battleship spot in WoWS engagements"

 

My answer would be yes. Battleships do belong in the battleship tree. I should think a battleship takes a battleship slot as well.  :Smile_trollface: