First Look: Tier VIII Premium American Cruiser USS San Diego

[SeaRaptor]

Tier VIII Premium American cruiser USS San Diego has come to live testing, which means we can finally have a look over the ship and talk about where she stands.  She's been a touch controversial leading up to this (as most forum regulars are aware).

 

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

I saw your video on YT before you made this thread.  With the changes I'm still not at ease with this ship.

You also mentioned the similar low shell velocities shared with Atlanta.  ATL & Sandy both have 792m/s for both shells.

 

The Artillery Chart shows very different deals for ATL & Sandy shell flight characteristics.  San Diego's shells, according to Fitting Tool Artillery Chart, behaves in flight like that of Cleveland.

[Col_Nasty]

Being a San Diego Native .. after what I just saw I may pass on this one.

Saw it in battle just an hour ago.. didn't do much and was DELETED from 80%hp once it tried to make a move to get into the fight.

I'll be watching.

[iDuckman]

1 hour ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

I saw your video on YT before you made this thread.  With the changes I'm still not at ease with this ship.

You also mentioned the similar low shell velocities shared with Atlanta.  ATL & Sandy both have 792m/s for both shells.

 

The Artillery Chart shows very different deals for ATL & Sandy shell flight characteristics.  San Diego's shells, according to Fitting Tool Artillery Chart, behaves in flight like that of Cleveland.

Atlanta shooting shells with the little drogue 'chutes?  Confused.

 

[Crucis]

As if we really needed yet another premium tier 8 USN cruiser.  

[ToxicSymphony]

2 hours ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

I saw your video on YT before you made this thread.  With the changes I'm still not at ease with this ship.

You also mentioned the similar low shell velocities shared with Atlanta.  ATL & Sandy both have 792m/s for both shells.

 

The Artillery Chart shows very different deals for ATL & Sandy shell flight characteristics.  San Diego's shells, according to Fitting Tool Artillery Chart, behaves in flight like that of Cleveland.

Unfortunately for this one you have to dig deeper than fitting tool, or at least, for the difference to become a bit more obvious:

From shiptool:

The reason the shells behave nothing alike is the fact Atlanta's shell drag is what, almost 70% higher? haha

[ArIskandir]

21 minutes ago, ToxicSymphony said:

Unfortunately for this one you have to dig deeper than fitting tool, or at least, for the difference to become a bit more obvious:

From shiptool:

The reason the shells behave nothing alike is the fact Atlanta's shell drag is what, almost 70% higher? haha

That's a huge improvement in shell performance, penetration is doubled and the arc is much flatter. Interesting.

[ToxicSymphony]

35 minutes ago, ArIskandir said:

That's a huge improvement in shell performance, penetration is doubled and the arc is much flatter. Interesting.

Pen values might not be *entirely* right, fitting tool and shiptool use the (simplified) older versions of the penetration formulas, but they're usually close.  

The 3s difference in flight time is huge though.  Sandy's really just an Atlanta that actually has shells that hit stuff at ranges (for now, I suppose).  Heh.  

For example:

https://jcw780.github.io/wows_ballistics/

All I did was change the drag since balli calc's not refreshed for 11.3 quite yet.  Shell stats are identical tho :).

     edit: they're updated now, pinged my friend who created it to update it for 11.3 :D

[SeaRaptor]

4 hours ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

I saw your video on YT before you made this thread.  With the changes I'm still not at ease with this ship.

You also mentioned the similar low shell velocities shared with Atlanta.  ATL & Sandy both have 792m/s for both shells.

 

The Artillery Chart shows very different deals for ATL & Sandy shell flight characteristics.  San Diego's shells, according to Fitting Tool Artillery Chart, behaves in flight like that of Cleveland.

Thanks, I could find this data on WOWSFT!

[Avalon304]

I dont hate this ships concept I just hate that they used San Diego for it...

[LitanyPurgatus]

11 hours ago, Crucis said:

As if we really needed yet another premium tier 8 USN cruiser.  

San Diego was the second-most decorated USN warship of WWII, after Enterprise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_decorated_US_Naval_vessels_of_World_War_II

[Nevermore135]

3 hours ago, LitanyPurgatus said:

San Diego was the second-most decorated USN warship of WWII, after Enterprise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_decorated_US_Naval_vessels_of_World_War_II

She’s also a light cruiser. The only USN premium CL at the tier is AL Montepelier, a limited-availability collaboration ship that is a near clone of tech tree CL Cleveland.

11 hours ago, Avalon304 said:

I dont hate this ships concept I just hate that they used San Diego for it...

Agreed.

I am particularly worried about the decision to give her an “Italian” ammo spread (SAP and AP) vs what we’ve come to expect from other American premiums (HE and SAP). The latter was even what she had originally, and it appears WG decided to arbitrarily change it when they reworked the ship to try to avoid the blowback from the community (I say they tried because they still completely missed the point ). It’s almost like someone didn’t appreciate that their initial concept was so poorly received and decided to sabotage the ship out of the spite. I’m certain there is some other explanation for the change, but I can’t see it.

SAP on Italian cruisers, and BBs to a lesser degree, works but DD-caliber SAP doesn’t overmatch any plating in the game. San Diego will be entirely dependent on her ability to farm superstructures for damage. I’m having horrible premonitions of DDs torp-rushing San Diego, which as an Atlanta-class should be a ship that DDs absolutely fear, as her SAP and AP harmlessly bounces off their angled bows. I believe San Diego also has standard cruiser dispersion vs the DD dispersion found on her tier VII sisters Atlanta and Flint.

[YouSatInGum]

14 hours ago, SeaRaptor said:

Thanks, I could find this data on WOWSFT!

It's all due the to the .27 drag number.

 

Austin gets the same benefit.  Even though it's MV is 808 m/s its flight times are usually within one or two tenths of Smolensk.... so air drag is a big deal.  Jinan and Sejong retain the usual Air drag for the 5"/54 so their shells keep their parachutes. 

It should be understood that ballistics in WOWS have a relationship to RL but it's a loose one and it's been getting looser lately.  Petro or Moskva shells are a great example of this.... they are listed as having a MV of 1000 m/s or a km a sec..... but if you go look at how long it takes for

those shells to travel 10km and you will see it's not the expected 10 seconds but more like around 5 seconds.  All ships in the game are like this.

[YouSatInGum]

The other thread covers this, but I"ll say this again.... not having radar or smoke is a big minus compared to either Atlanta or Flint a tier before it....

[Irishwind]

I was hoping it was going to be an Atlanta/Flint at tier 8 that also brings back the idea of a ship based no fly zone for enemy CVs. 

[SeaRaptor]

2 hours ago, Nevermore135 said:

SAP on Italian cruisers, and BBs to a lesser degree, works but DD-caliber SAP doesn’t overmatch any plating in the game. 

Why the concern about overmatch?  With SAP the full pen is the goal.  36mm of penetration absolutely makes a total hash of a non-zero number of heavy cruisers and battleships, provided you know where to aim.  

[Crucis]

7 hours ago, LitanyPurgatus said:

San Diego was the second-most decorated USN warship of WWII, after Enterprise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_decorated_US_Naval_vessels_of_World_War_II

Well, woop-dee-do.  If this excuse was used all the time, the game would be drowning in USN premium ships from the WW2 era.  

edit: For those who downvote this post, if you care so much about highly decorated historical ships, go visit some museum ships!  This game isn't a museum!  

[tfcas119]

Well upon finding out that Sandy has double the AP pen of Atlanta (around Smolensk/Colbert/Grozovoi territory) with shell travel similar to Bayard than Atlanta, she looks a lot better than we thought. The  double AP pen means at close ranges (around 8km) you’ll be able to reliably hit light cruiser citadels, and at 4km, most heavies, and you aren’t gimped on DPM like Austin without MBRB either. So Sandy is not the T8 Atlanta we wanted, but at least it doesn’t look like the complete disaster it was when first announced

[landcollector]

33 minutes ago, tfcas119 said:

Well upon finding out that Sandy has double the AP pen of Atlanta (around Smolensk/Colbert/Grozovoi territory) with shell travel similar to Bayard than Atlanta, she looks a lot better than we thought. The  double AP pen means at close ranges (around 8km) you’ll be able to reliably hit light cruiser citadels, and at 4km, most heavies, and you aren’t gimped on DPM like Austin without MBRB either. So Sandy is not the T8 Atlanta we wanted, but at least it doesn’t look like the complete disaster it was when first announced

While true, the chances of A) surviving long enough to get to just 4km from a CA and B) said CA player being being greedy/potato enough to show broadside at such close range when it is well known that Atlantas are one of the few USN cruisers past T5 to have torps seem quite low to me.  *shrug*

[LuckyStarFan]

I wonder if she will claim the tier 8 title of 'most devstruck ship'.  Seems a strong contender.

[SkullCowboy_60]

1 hour ago, Crucis said:

Well, woop-dee-do.  If this excuse was used all the time, the game would be drowning in USN premium ships from the WW2 era.  

edit: For those who downvote this post, if you care so much about highly decorated historical ships, go visit some museum ships!  This game isn't a museum!  

Compared to the other major nations in game premie US CA's at T8 haven't reached tribble levels yet. Perhaps mention what you would prefer instead of moaning about it. Another Atago clone maybe?

[Halonut24]

19 hours ago, ToxicSymphony said:

The reason the shells behave nothing alike is the fact Atlanta's shell drag is what, almost 70% higher? haha

The real number that caught my eye here is the penetration. Literally 2x what Atlanta gets. Does this mean San Diego has usable AP? On top of better flight times and more AP-friendly arcs? Damnit, I might actually be interested now...

Still not a fan of SAP/AP on paper, but without gameplay it's hard to say if the ballistic buffs translate well enough to in-game performance to justify that choice over SAP/HE or AP/HE.

The 16km range feels more like a concealment nerf than a gunnery buff. We're still looking at ~20 seconds to get shells on target at max range and that also means everything in a 16km aura around you will see you once you open fire. Very bad if you're trying to utilize an island with line-of-sight across the map on your flank. 14km seems more reasonable, but whatever.

Torps are still a waste of time.

5km hydro is nice, also since you have that with USN DD DFAA. With Atlanta you had to chose one or the other. The heal feels kind of necessary. I know people have their gripes about it, but 29k hp at Tier VIII needs some form of heal. 

I get the feeling stealth builds will be the way to go with this ship. It can't support DD the same way Atlanta can, but if the AA actually holds up and the DD you're with isn't a knucklehead, she might be scary enough to warrant giving caps a wide berth. I look forward to seeing gameplay.

*sigh* alright WG, you have my attention. Sell her to me. Let's see what you got.

[Nevermore135]

7 hours ago, SeaRaptor said:

Why the concern about overmatch?  With SAP the full pen is the goal.  36mm of penetration absolutely makes a total hash of a non-zero number of heavy cruisers and battleships, provided you know where to aim.  

Both AP and SAP can be angled against and bounced. Austin has the benefit of being able to switch to HE to deal with a charging DD or have an alternate source of damage once her target’s superstructures are saturated. San Diego is  out of luck in those cases. It’s hard to tell from the paper stats, but I’m not confident the ballistic improvements will be enough to make her SAP/AP combo viable enough, especially vs. her old HE/SAP combination.

BB SAP has overmatch, but Italians BBs are hamstrung by just about every other aspect of their guns. Italians cruisers have the ballistics to accurately place their SAP rounds. The ammo combination is workable in the former case, and can be quite powerful in the latter, but even then Italian cruisers struggle when targets properly angle against them. I expect San Diego to struggle even more, as her SAP lacks the improved bounce angles found on Italian CA SAP.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

3 hours ago, YouSatInGum said:

The other thread covers this, but I"ll say this again.... not having radar or smoke is a big minus compared to either Atlanta or Flint a tier before it....

There's still Cleveland in the tech tree at this tier that one can compare San Diego to.  I guess WG feels SAP + MBRB is Sandy's gimmick, enough to replace Cleveland's Radar utility or the prospect of Smoke like Flint.

1 hour ago, LuckyStarFan said:

I wonder if she will claim the tier 8 title of 'most devstruck ship'.  Seems a strong contender.

She's still on a Atlanta-class hull with said armor.  Atlantas get deleted very easily in Tier VII already.  Consider as a Tier VIII with that awful armor scheme she will see the likes of Petropavlovsk, Henri IV, Des Moines, Salem, Zao, Hindenburg, Moskva, etc. with their high powered Heavy Cruiser guns.  A number of these will also have special AP bounce angles like Russian and USN Heavy Cruisers.

She will also deal with the full spectrum of Super Cruisers in the game, from VIII Congresss to X Puerto Rico, Yoshino, etc.

 

Do not forget 419mm x12 armed Conqueror in Tier X and her short fused AP shells.

[Musket22]

1 hour ago, SkullCowboy_60 said:

Compared to the other major nations in game premie US CA's at T8 haven't reached tribble levels yet. Perhaps mention what you would prefer instead of moaning about it. Another Atago clone maybe?

Well, to be fair, you'd have to be a well qualified diver to see most other nations 'museum ships' :)