South Carolina's Shells Ineffective?

[Tank3rDude]

I have just gotten my first battleship, the South Carolina, and although I am new to Battleships and rather new to WoWS in general, I am pretty sure I have a fair idea about when and when not to use AP/HE. But it seems that using either shell I can not cause more than 1k damage with hits on any ship. I find that the 152's on the St. Louis cause way more damage, and consistently. Am I missing something or are the big caliber guns on BB's actually not any better than the smaller caliber guns? I have played mulitple games in it in random and co-op game modes. Someone please help because I am getting owned by low tier cruisers and destroyers in long range slugfests and this just does not seem right. And also just to add, I am hitting a good amount of my shots, they just do nothing.

[ClockworkSpectre]

I may have to do with where you are aiming.  To maximize damage you need to aim for citadel hits.  If you are sure you won't be able to land a citadel(keep in mind that the angle a ship is at may increase its effective armor making it harder to damage), use HE and try to hit the superstructure of BBs, or anywhere on smaller ships.  Against small ships like DDs, AP from battleship guns can over penetrate, so you need to aim really carefully or use HE on them.  I am not sure what else to say, but you will get used to it over time I'd think.  Oh, and US battleships have pretty bad accuracy at max range, its best to fire a mid range if you can manage it. 

[dustbowl]

I ended up using straight HE on the South Carolina for the few games I had it.  The 14" guns on the next two tiers play a little more as expected.

[Tank3rDude]

I ended up using straight HE on the South Carolina for the few games I had it.  The 14" guns on the next two tiers play a little more as expected.

 

Well that is good to know, thanks.

[donaldEpott]

Try to hit in the middle of the ships and no the ends. Hit the engineering spaces will do alot more damage. I did so with the New Mexico one Broadside killed a Kongo 50K+ damage in one broadside.

[yamed]

I also find that even at close range when I aim at the citadel a lot of shells miss. When I say close range I am talking about less than 4 km. where almost 90% should hit

 

[Tank3rDude]

I also find that even at close range when I aim at the citadel a lot of shells miss. When I say close range I am talking about less than 4 km. where almost 90% should hit

 

 

I have the exact same results. usually only 2-3 shells will hit while the rest sail over/below the ship that is so close i have to zoom all the way out to see it.

[GUTB]

Hi. I've played the IJN line all the way up to the Yamato. I've recently sold all of my BBs due to the terrible state of BBs. But I did try the South Carolina a few times before dropping BBs altogether -- it is a horrid, rancid, unusable hunk of garbage. Wild spreads at short range, very fragile, even in comparison with fragile BBs in general, slow and weak guns. Unlike the Kawachi, there are no redeeming qualities.

 

​just hold your nose through it....or better yet, just forget BBs until/if they are fixed. My Kongo was my overall favorite BB; after the patch, though, it was nerfed into a joke. And "burning love" took on a new meaning.

[Tank3rDude]

Well I finally got the Wyoming and while the guns are more accurate I still find it rare to cause a substantial amount of damage. And it just isn't worth all the negatives if the guns are not any better than the cruiser class. It is slow and a huge target that catches fire with every hit. As much as I hate to say it, it seems that Destroyers are very Over-performing in the current state of the game. We used to be able to counter them with a good HE salvo, but since the recent HE nerfs, some Destroyers are tanking shots like a BB!!