Could a line of battle be a valid strategy?

[Cdr_Shernav]

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take? Especially if the line keeps its distance a bit with cruisers and destroyers protecting the flanks. It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

[TheOmegaDuck]

It doesn't really work in WOWS. IMO, it's mostly due to how much more damage you can get when shooting at a broadside target.

 

The ship showing it's broadside may fire more shells, but the ship bow in has a few advantages:
1) Typically, dispersion/accuracy means that a broadside target is easier to hit (So a higher % of the shells fired hit the target)
2) The bow, turrets, and conning tower of the bow in ship basically can't be penned by the broadside ship because of overmatch rules or armor thickness, meaning that most shells which do damage do it via overpenning the superstructure (There's a handful of exceptions here, but they're not super important to the basic concept)
3) The broadside ship doesn't have these defensive advantages, meaning that sells which do damage will likely do it via full pens in the hull, or potentially citadels.
 

You should try running a few tests in a training battle. Choose your best BB, and load a few enemy bot BBs in (Don't enable movement or firing for the bots). Take a few dozen broadsides at their bows, and then take a few dozen broadsides at their broadsides. I'd be willing to bet that you do 3-4x more damage when you're shooting their broadsides VS when you're shooting their bows. 

 

 

[Xidax_Gamer]

31 minutes ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take? Especially if the line keeps its distance a bit with cruisers and destroyers protecting the flanks. It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

In a word, no. You're new here, so I'll try to explain.

WOWS is nowhere near an accuarate simulation, and never tried to be. You see crazy things in the game mechanics all the time that are designed to make a fun game, not reflect reality. The main mechanics and gameplay are derivative of WG's flagship title World of Tanks, which is why you see ships acting like tanks, fighting bow-on and trying to play "hull-down" behind islands in ambush positions.

The fact is, real naval combat is incredibly tedious most of the time, interspersed with a few minutes of utter mayhem. Not the best format for an arcade shooter game.

Make the best of it and try to find the fun. If nothing else, the artwork is really good.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

A perfect line of BBs showing their broadsides are going to get rekt in this game.

 

1.  May as well ring the dinner bell for DD players.  DD players might not make it to their attack points because they may faint from seeing so many perfect targets sailing in formation.

2.  By sticking into a restrictive line, you're also going to be easy targets for CV air attacks.

3.  The other team's BBs will be drooling when they see a conga line of enemy Battleships sailing in a perfect line all showing their broadsides.

 

I get where you're coming from OP, because formation fighting was how it was done, even in WWII.  But this game is an arcade game, and most importantly the engine this game is based off of was designed for tanks in mind.  The whole angling thing for bouncing shells?  That's something you'll hear from arcade tank games, not naval warfare.  When one realizes this engine was meant for tank play, the nuances of WoWS start making sense.

 

How it was really done in WWII:

Empress Augusta Bay

Battle of Cape Matapan

 

Not to mention trying to corral complete strangers into playing a specific way.  It's just not happening in WoWS.  Again, I get where you're coming from OP, I wish things were somehow like that, but it's just not happening in WoWS.  Even "that other game" playing in formation is not a thing for all 3 of its elements:  Air, ground, and naval.

[Snoopys_Odyssey]

1 hour ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take? Especially if the line keeps its distance a bit with cruisers and destroyers protecting the flanks. It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

the difference in fantasy and real life.  In the game the guns of battleships have around 40% of a hit rate.  In reality the hit rate of a battleship in 1940's is about 2-3%.  To "cross the T" with a battle line of BBs was a substantial advantage.  

Do you really want to play a game where out of 100 shots from your guns you only get 2-3 actually hits?  

And also....the battleships of the time weren't going full speed either.  Ships of the line were going about 15 knots to improve their accuracy. 

[IfYouSeeKhaos]

2 hours ago, TheOmegaDuck said:

snip

 

2 hours ago, Xidax_Gamer said:

snip

 

1 hour ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

snip

 

1 hour ago, Snoopys_Odyssey said:

snip

It sounds like OP understands the concept of not showing broadside in the game:

2 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

...the extra damage they take?

But he actually answered his own question by mentioning that he understands this concept:

2 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

...push up diagonally (aka: angling).

You don't have to be full broadside to bring all guns around OP...

As your pushing up (& not camping) you have the speed in most BBs to go at just enough angle to cut your back turrets in as they reload & then cut back to a more bow angled position during reload while pushing... & alternating between back & front turrets firing instead of waiting to go full volley allows your fronts to constantly fire as they reload & rears to be fired when it's safe to do so (between red volleys).

A formation of BBs doing that can wipe a flank clean as it gives multiple varying temporary targets of opportunity & no 1 of them gets focused...

Static bow ins could be easily flanked by a multiple BB push with proper angling...provided you can get all the cruisers & DDs to sniff out their DDs...

In a random battle...

With random players...

On a random planet...

In a random solar system...

In a random universe...

It could happen...

But here...

Yeah...GL w/that ;-D

[_ENO_]

A line of super battleships crossing the T of a row of cruisers? Maybe. 

But yeah- I think you understand that it just doesn't work this way given the mechanics. 

[kgh52]

5 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take? Especially if the line keeps its distance a bit with cruisers and destroyers protecting the flanks. It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

As others have explained, this is a 3rd person shooter, not a naval battle simulator. 

Game mechanics, maps and the lack of team cohesion all go against using a battle line.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

6 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take?

It worked at Trafalgar (Nelson effectively crossed the T in two places and trusted to overwhelming British superiority in gunnery), Tsushima and Surigao Strait (and would have worked at Jutland had the weather been clear), but the problem in WOWS is twofold: the first is the broadside issue, as stated above (although the line being T'd can only bring half its guns to bear unless it's all Richelieus, Dunkerques and Strasbourgs) and the second is being able to herd all your cats into said line of battle. In a training room or clan battle, with full voice comms across the entire team and complete agreement on tactics, it could be done; in Co-op or Randoms, forget about it; in Operations the tactical situation usually doesn't require it.

[JamesTomb]

The WoWS equivalent of crossing the T is setting up crossfire scenarios where the enemy can't angle effectively against 2 or more of your ships.

Which is kinda the opposite of crossing the T but don't think too hard about it.

[ArIskandir]

8 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

It is a bit complicated. Many guys have already explained all the broadside aspect so lets narrow down your idea to having your BB work is a coordinated loose formation. This mean you are grouping up all your BBs in a certain area, this implies:  

- You have no BBs on other areas of the map. If the enemy pushes you there your forces will lack the "backbone" to hold their ground. 

- You have no flanking defilade fire on the enemy. 

- If you push your BB force and manage to crush the enemy flank, great. But if the enemy is smart he will kite your push, delay and make you waste time. Your advance soon will leave you exposed to enemies attacking you from different directions and convergent angles, which is really bad. You'll get the game equivalent of a Schlieffen's swinging door effect. 

So in short, concentrating forces is a risky proposition. You give up map control in order to gain a firepower advantage that hopefully lets you destroy some elements of the enemy force and gain a significant numeric/power advantage. If you fail to destroy or significatively hurt the enemy (and a skilled enemy can deny you that objective) then all you achieved was trading map control for peanuts.

[Lord_Slayer]

8 hours ago, Cdr_Shernav said:

Now this seems insane, no way anything good could come from a line of battleships all showing their broadside, but could the sheer concentrated firepower of all the guns prove more of an advantage than the extra damage they take? Especially if the line keeps its distance a bit with cruisers and destroyers protecting the flanks. It wouldn't even have to be a full line ahead, it could be a weird hybrid between line ahead and line abreast, or the line ahead could push up diagonally. I'm just a rookie, so excuse me if I sound naïve.

Does it work this way in the game?

No. the game just isnt really designed for it.

that said, the closest thing you might see is this Jingles video.

About 6 minutes in, Jingles shows us a replay of a div of 3 Lyons, all firing together at one target.

 

 

 

[Viva_Palestine]

In real life, yes. However this game doesn't model real ship to ship combat.  Nor could you organize a random group of strangers with varying skill to accomplish this in-game.  So no. 

Happy thought though. As noted above, the closest you can get is a division using focus fire techniques.

[Wolfswetpaws]

"Focused fire" and "setting-up a cross-fire" is the in-game equivalent of "Crossing the T".

Those pesky islands keep getting in the way.  The maps are too small.  The detection & spotting mechanics of the game affect the situation.  And etc. & etc.

[black_hull4]

12 hours ago, TheOmegaDuck said:

Typically, dispersion/accuracy means that a broadside target is easier to hit (So a higher % of the shells fired hit the target)
2) The bow, turrets, and conning tower of the bow in ship basically can't be penned by the broadside ship because of overmatch rules or armor thickness, meaning that most shells which do damage do it via overpenning the superstructure (There's a handful of exceptions here, but they're not super important to the basic concept)

Ripple firing HE pretty much nulls these points. Fletcher & St. Louis-class ship are very good at this.

[xHeavy]

In wows PvP random we were presented with our First Ocean map and a all BB team both sides.

Several of us in game chat ordered our teammates to cluster together and fleet up. And in about a minute we had roughly two lines together. All BB's and all turrets unmasked with all of us in 1000 meter spread apart give or take.

The first human red team BB showed up. Many of us fired once or twice. Poof. Next enemy BB showed up. Poof. Poff And poof.

Quiet....... we realized that the rest of the team turned tail and ran for a corner here and a corner there. So we just cleaned the nooks and crannies. Poof poof and more poof.

And that was that.

That happened only once in my 7 to 8 years with Wows. That particular random battle was a turning point. You can have a warship with two million hull points and 100 inch guns, but you wont live long enough to victory. You get farmed. Say you do shoot one time. Do maybe 40K in damage to one of our ships. The entire team fires at you and you are essentially poof. You dont live long enough to finish another reload.

[TheOmegaDuck]

4 hours ago, black_hull4 said:

Ripple firing HE pretty much nulls these points. Fletcher & St. Louis-class ship are very good at this.

The question was about battleships, not DDs or CAs.

[black_hull4]

1 hour ago, TheOmegaDuck said:

The question was about battleships, not DDs or CAs.

And if the target is bow-in you probably should still be firing HE, unless you've memorized what you can & can't overmatch.