A detailed look at Dunkerque/Strasbourg

[dseehafer]

Greetings all,

 

     I am writing this post because in an earlier post i configured a french tech tree. Some people disagreed with some of my placements (which will always happen as i encourage people to include their opinions so that appropriate changes can be made if applicable), most notably the fact that i had Dunkerque/Strasbourg at tier 6 and another battleship, the Lyon, at tier 7. My reasoning for putting lyon at tier 7 was the fact that it would have had 16x 13" guns in 4 quad turrets. Some people though Dunkerque/Strasbourg should be a tier 7 instead of lyon because it had better speed and far better AA and her turret configuration would better prepare players for the Richelieu at tier 8 (most likely) These are all very good points, but do they justify a ship with 2 forward  quad 13" turrets being at tier 7. Lets take a look!

 

     First off it should be noted that i will be using Strasbourg as an example as it was an "improved" version of the Dunkerque being that it was uparmored after France learned that Italy planned on building a battleship with 15" guns, Dunkerques armor was only proof against 11" guns. On average Strasbourgs armor was around 20mm thicker than Dunkerque's in most areas.

 

Lets start by comparing the armor thickness and hit points compared to the other 2 tier 7 battleship, Nagato and Colorado.

 

STRASBOURG

Belt: 283mm

torpedo bulkhead: 30-50mm

Deck: 127-137mm

Turrets: 160-360mm

Armored bridge: 270mm

 

NAGATO

Belt: 305mm

torpedo bulkhead: 76mm

deck: 197mm

Turrets: 190-457mm

Armored bridge: 356mm

 

COLORADO

Belt: 178-343mm

torpedo bulkhead: 85mm

deck: 89-120mm

turrets: 127-457mm

armored bridge: 406mm

 

hitpoints would probably be lowest because at 36,200t  it weighs less than Nagato's 45,816t and Colorado's 41,140t. And Weight is directly related to how many Hitpoints a ship gets.

 

Now lets compare speed!

 

STRASBOURG - 30.4kn

NAGATO - 25kn

COLORADO - 21kn

 

Strasbourg wins by a longshot! At 706 ft. long its turning circle will probably be somewhere between that of nagato and colorado's, also not bad at all.

 

What about Strasbourg's guns? Will they be able to penetrate? They are, after all, 3" smaller than the other 2 tier 7 battleships! Lets see what Navweaps has to say shall we?

 

     the guns at 23,000m have 105mm deck penetration, the nagato has 197mm of deck armor over the magazines and a 70mm deck over that. The Colorado has an 89mm deck over the magazines, a 120mm deck over the machinery, and a 38mm deck over both. This being said these guns do have an adequate side armor penetration value at this range of 342mm! Navweaps has the reload speed for these guns at 1.5 to 2 rounds per minute, thats a 30-45 second reload time, not very good for such a small shell! So these guns do not have a reload advantage or a numbers advantage at 8 guns, the guns are smaller and therefore most likely do less damage this means the dpm is also less than that of Nagato and Colorado!

 

Now lets look at Strasbourgs secondary armament and AA armament

 

Secondary's - 3x4 and 2x2 130mm

AA - 5x2 37mm, 4x2 and 3x1 13.2mm

 

Here we can see that the secondary armament wont be turning any heads at this tier and the AA lags far behind both Colorado and Nagato in their top hull configurations!

 

     So here we can see that Strasbourg has less armor, less firepower and less AA defense than her would be tier 7 piers. Winning only in the top speed category. Not to mention her main armament is located exclusively foreward! So now that we've gone over her with a fine-toothed comb, does she belong at tier 7 or at tier 6, or perhaps somewhere else? Dont get me wrong, i love this ship, i think she is an absolute beauty and i really hope to see her in game... just not at tier 7. what do you guys think? let me know!

 

 

[fettsheir]

The balance is interesting. A fast battleship made in an era where dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts were still king, meaning that she's fast, maneuverable, but doesn't have near the punch or armor of tiered counterparts. Quite frankly, if WG were to pursue this they could simply use the same balance style as they already use for the French in WoT. French heavies are much faster on average than their tiered counterparts, aren't quite as punchy (except T9 and 10), and their armor almost isn't useful at all. Sounds like a good start to a concept to me.

[ryuukei8569]

Really,in all honesty, she would probably only be capable of being at T5. Her displacement is closer to that of New york and Kongo, and she would struggle badly against the dozen 14 inch guns of New Mexico and Fuso. Her gun penetration is really closer to a 14 inch gun anyway, and WG doesn't acknowledge armor quality. And even if her guns have better pen than kongo or new yorks,the guns will still do less damage per shot. So to be completely honest,  I don't even see this ship as being T6 material.

[Taichunger]

I tend to agree. She'd be OK in T5, though a New York would destroy her, she might be a match for Kongo since Kongo is easily citadeled. She'd be fun for running down cruisers and capping wherever you put her. 

Much would depend on range that WG assigns her. If you stick her in T6 the Fuso will beat her to death before she ever gets into range and she'd never get a sniff of a New Mexico's citadel. Either of those would wreck her. Even the NY has pretty respectable range. And then at T6 she's going to be encountering the annoying Cleveland all the time....

T6 is a reach, she fits better at T5.  

 

Taichunger

[OhnoesFroz]

If the ship was significantly more agile than the other battleships, I could see it doing well in T6, and just relying on HE to fight battleships like cruisers do.

 

This combined with the gun layout being ideal for combat in this game would probably make the ship perform decently.

 

While the ship is significantly newer than the other T6 ships or even the T7s, nearly all of them were extensively rebuilt in around the same time period that this ship was, so it doesn't seem too out of place in that regard either.

[Clickenhof]

Good looking ship.........in the photo that is

 

[dseehafer]

. Her gun penetration is really closer to a 14 inch gun anyway, and WG doesn't acknowledge armor quality.

Im confused as to what you mean by armor quality. the in game models do have the Historical armor models as far as thicknesss is concerned (at least in all the ships ive checked) you can see the armor model for yourself at 3dgamemodels .com Also fun fact for you, the nagato has a mirrored turtle back, in which it slopes both in and out compared to Tirpitz which only slopes in here is what the Tirpitz belt and turtleback looks like " l/ " this is what nagato's looks like " l< " although most of it is only 76mm compared to tirpitz 110mm , it is 289mm thick under the foreward turrets protecting that magazine! Overall looking at the Nagatos armor model she is extremely well armored!

[Kanzler_Bismarck]

Good looking ship.........in the photo that is

 

 

The French built some VERY pretty ships.

[QuicksilverJPR]

If the ship was significantly more agile than the other battleships, I could see it doing well in T6, and just relying on HE to fight battleships like cruisers do.

 

This combined with the gun layout being ideal for combat in this game would probably make the ship perform decently.

 

While the ship is significantly newer than the other T6 ships or even the T7s, nearly all of them were extensively rebuilt in around the same time period that this ship was, so it doesn't seem too out of place in that regard either.

 

If 8" gunned cruisers can pen and citadel BBs at tier 5-6, then surely a 13" gunned fast battleships could do more than that.  Aiming is key, obviously.

 

Use the speed to get into position, then hammer with the quad forward turrets, and fall back.  A volley or two is all it would take to punish the other BBs.  I'd be willing to develop tactics to use such weapons of war  

 

Plus, they're very pretty ships!

 

 

[JSFWRX85]

maybe she will be a premium? She would def fit in as a premium tier 6.

[ButtonsPushed]

I am sure it would be a fun ship to have but lose one turret and half your firepower gone. 

[ryuukei8569]

Im confused as to what you mean by armor quality. the in game models do have the Historical armor models as far as thicknesss is concerned (at least in all the ships ive checked) you can see the armor model for yourself at 3dgamemodels .com Also fun fact for you, the nagato has a mirrored turtle back, in which it slopes both in and out compared to Tirpitz which only slopes in here is what the Tirpitz belt and turtleback looks like " l/ " this is what nagato's looks like " l< " although most of it is only 76mm compared to tirpitz 110mm , it is 289mm thick under the foreward turrets protecting that magazine! Overall looking at the Nagatos armor model she is extremely well armored!

 

Meaning that WG doesn't acknowledge the quality of the armor plates themselves. As far as their models are concerned, a 14 inch armor plate is a 14 inch armor plate, regardless of the era or nation that the plate came from. Metallurgical quality of the armor plates is not factored. For example, in game, the belt armor protection of Montana and Yamato is identical, they can both be penned at the exact same distance and in real life, the armor belts on both ships was the same thickness and about the same inclination, but Yamato's armor quality was metallurgically inferior by some degree, so it was probably about 90% the effectiveness of the same thickness US armor plate. But in game, that part is completely ignored.

[dseehafer]

 

Meaning that WG doesn't acknowledge the quality of the armor plates themselves. As far as their models are concerned, a 14 inch armor plate is a 14 inch armor plate, regardless of the era or nation that the plate came from. Metallurgical quality of the armor plates is not factored. For example, in game, the belt armor protection of Montana and Yamato is identical, they can both be penned at the exact same distance and in real life, the armor belts on both ships was the same thickness and about the same inclination, but Yamato's armor quality was metallurgically inferior by some degree, so it was probably about 90% the effectiveness of the same thickness US armor plate. But in game, that part is completely ignored.

 

adding more numbers to this game would most likely fry my potato tho, for the little actual effect it would have in game.  i think WG has gone for uniformity here for simplification reasons. There are several different types of armored plates, some are meant to set off the fuse of a shell, some are meant to slow the shell speed, some are meant to deflect the shell all together, having a different calculation for each type of armor plate in a ship would get quite complicated. The game would have to sit and check so many different variables for a shell to pass through different plates of armor inside the ship, constantly having to change said variables after each successful plate penetration would probably cause extreme lagging and tearing. Instead the game simply sits and says to itself "right then, this shell is about to hit an armor plate that is 70mm thick, lets see here the shell has 90mm of penetration, right then, through the plate you go. Here we have come to another armor plate past the first one! this one is 25mm thick, this shell has already burned off 70mm of penetration, that leaves only 20mm penetration left, sorry mr. shell, no citadel for you today"

[SinqueScheiDeMona]

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNFR_13-50_m1931.htm

 

At battle ranges she can easily penetrate ~13" of belt armor. Angle of fall means not to expect a lot of plunging shots . However fast, low arc guns and a healthy cruising speed means this shis is no way a T5. Dunkerque will be a noob friendly battleship that should work quite well at T7. Now the Doria rebuild is a solid T5 if we want to talk T5. 

[Hurlbut]

There's a reason British called any armor, beyond what is needed over the critical innards, "burster" in the incremental armor scheme; they serve to set off the AP shell after it penetrated the armor.

 

 

Instead the game simply sits and says to itself "right then, this shell is about to hit an armor plate that is 70mm thick, lets see here the shell has 90mm of penetration, right then, through the plate you go. Here we have come to another armor plate past the first one! this one is 25mm thick, this shell has already burned off 70mm of penetration, that leaves only 20mm penetration left, sorry mr. shell, no citadel for you today"

 

 

The idea behind having an extra armor plating above the main horizontal armor is so the bomb or shell would be set off earlier before it reached the citadel zone. It's not about "bleeding" off the penetration power but causing the fuse to GO OFF early so it explode outside of the citadel.

[ryuukei8569]

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNFR_13-50_m1931.htm

 

At battle ranges she can easily penetrate ~13" of belt armor. Angle of fall means not to expect a lot of plunging shots . However fast, low arc guns and a healthy cruising speed means this shis is no way a T5. Dunkerque will be a noob friendly battleship that should work quite well at T7. Now the Doria rebuild is a solid T5 if we want to talk T5. 

 

Uh no, just because a gun has high penetration doesn't mean anything. These are still 13 inch shells, so their damage per shot is still going to be less than 14 inch guns. Even if the guns have better penetration, the HE and AP DPM is still going to be lower than kongo or New york. Sorry but no way in hell this ship is even competitive with the new mexicos, let alone colorado or Nagato. And ship speed is not a good determining factor for tiering either. Kongo is able to do 30 kts and it is a T5, so just because a ship can go fast does not make it worthy of high tiering.

[Tricericon]

The French Twins fit well at tier 6, but Lyon is by no means a tier 7 either. You're going to need to go paper there, I'm afraid.

[Aetreus]

 

Meaning that WG doesn't acknowledge the quality of the armor plates themselves. As far as their models are concerned, a 14 inch armor plate is a 14 inch armor plate, regardless of the era or nation that the plate came from. Metallurgical quality of the armor plates is not factored. For example, in game, the belt armor protection of Montana and Yamato is identical, they can both be penned at the exact same distance and in real life, the armor belts on both ships was the same thickness and about the same inclination, but Yamato's armor quality was metallurgically inferior by some degree, so it was probably about 90% the effectiveness of the same thickness US armor plate. But in game, that part is completely ignored.

The problem is that armor plate quality is a much, much more complicated issue than that, and varied significantly between nations ships, thickness of a plate, impact parameters, etc. VH was not significantly inferior to US Cemented at the thicknesses used in Montana and Yamato, but it was significantly weaker at lower thicknesses. Representing this would require using significantly more complicated armor penetration calculations. It could be done, but I doubt that WG would go through with it.

 

On topic, Dunkerque is nowhere near tier VII quality. Probably V. To compare, even at tier V she's underarmed, and will struggle in the DPM race while not having a pen advantage or high durability to offset it. Also, I suspect that she'll suffer from bad dispersion, which will put her further behind.

[Tricericon]

On topic, Dunkerque is nowhere near tier VII quality. Probably V. To compare, even at tier V she's underarmed, and will struggle in the DPM race while not having a pen advantage or high durability to offset it. Also, I suspect that she'll suffer from bad dispersion, which will put her further behind.

 

Eh... Dunkerque is as fast as Kongo and her guns are as good, but she has ~50% more armor. Tier VI is most appropriate to avoid obsoleting Kongo.

 

Note that the 1931 model French 13"/50s have very, very good pen for their size.

[SinqueScheiDeMona]

 

Uh no, just because a gun has high penetration doesn't mean anything. These are still 13 inch shells, so their damage per shot is still going to be less than 14 inch guns. Even if the guns have better penetration, the HE and AP DPM is still going to be lower than kongo or New york. Sorry but no way in hell this ship is even competitive with the new mexicos, let alone colorado or Nagato. And ship speed is not a good determining factor for tiering either. Kongo is able to do 30 kts and it is a T5, so just because a ship can go fast does not make it worthy of high tiering.

 

Having good penetration doesn't mean anything...what?!?! I'm pretty sure defeating the protection of the enemy ship is the precise purpose of the armament. Should our ships be inviting each other over for high tea instead? This is a modern 36000t ship with 13" high velocity guns. I have a feeling if I was talking about German 13" guns many would be slobbering. 

[ryuukei8569]

 

Eh... Dunkerque is as fast as Kongo and her guns are as good, but she has ~50% more armor. Tier VI is most appropriate to avoid obsoleting Kongo.

 

Note that the 1931 model French 13"/50s have very, very good pen for their size.

 

Only in armor penetration. The shells are lighter and as a result, the AP and HE damage per shell is going to be lower. probably no more than 9000 for AP and 4500 for HE. so even if the guns have comperable penetration, raw DPM will be lower. and Kongo is still likely to have the HP advantage. Either Way Dunkerque is going to struggle badly against New mexico and Fuso, and the other thing worth noting, is that functionally there isn't a lot of improvement between T6 and T7 battleships, HP doesn't change much, armor doesn't change much, the DPM potential of the T6's is actually higher than T7's. really all the T7's have is better AA and 16 inch guns. only way Dunkerque is going to compete at T6 level, is thye would have to give it a RoF buff up to its theoretical maximum of 3 RPM, something that was never achieved by the class in service.

[ryuukei8569]

 

Having good penetration doesn't mean anything...what?!?! I'm pretty sure defeating the protection of the enemy ship is the precise purpose of the armament. Should our ships be inviting each other over for high tea instead? This is a modern 36000t ship with 13" high velocity guns. I have a feeling if I was talking about German 13" guns many would be slobbering. 

 

Uh, your wrong, Standard displacement of the class is 30,750 tons standard, barely any higher than new york or the refitted kongo's. 35,500 tons is the Full Load displacement. Pretty big difference there. And even if the 13 inch guns have better penetration, the damage per shell will be 9000 for AP tops. May be less than that depending on how WG would want to balance french shells. In game terms, this plays a much bigger factor than armor penetration anyway. In real life yes the armor penetration factor would be more important, but in game terms, with the sole exception of Yamato's super pen shells, DPM and shell damage rating tends matters more, otherwise colorado and nagato wouldn't widely be considered a downgrade or at best side grade from fuso and new mexico.  Against the dozen 14" shells of New Mexico and Fuso, the Dunkerques would be crushed like a bug. The armor is also only 10 inches thick, that's less than Fuso and New York, let alone New Mexico, Colorado and Nagato.

[Tricericon]

 

Only in armor penetration. The shells are lighter and as a result, the AP and HE damage per shell is going to be lower. probably no more than 9000 for AP and 4500 for HE. so even if the guns have comperable penetration, raw DPM will be lower. and Kongo is still likely to have the HP advantage. Either Way Dunkerque is going to struggle badly against New mexico and Fuso, and the other thing worth noting, is that functionally there isn't a lot of improvement between T6 and T7 battleships, HP doesn't change much, armor doesn't change much, the DPM potential of the T6's is actually higher than T7's. really all the T7's have is better AA and 16 inch guns. only way Dunkerque is going to compete at T6 level, is thye would have to give it a RoF buff up to its theoretical maximum of 3 RPM, something that was never achieved by the class in service.

 

 

Uh, your wrong, Standard displacement of the class is 30,750 tons standard, barely any higher than new york or the refitted kongo's. 35,500 tons is the Full Load displacement. Pretty big difference there. And even if the 13 inch guns have better penetration, the damage per shell will be 9000 for AP tops. May be less than that depending on how WG would want to balance french shells. In game terms, this plays a much bigger factor than armor penetration anyway. In real life yes the armor penetration factor would be more important, but in game terms, with the sole exception of Yamato's super pen shells, DPM and shell damage rating tends matters more, otherwise colorado and nagato wouldn't widely be considered a downgrade or at best side grade from fuso and new mexico.  Against the dozen 14" shells of New Mexico and Fuso, the Dunkerques would be crushed like a bug. The armor is also only 10 inches thick, that's less than Fuso and New York, let alone New Mexico, Colorado and Nagato.

 

Some points:

- D&S's guns won't have "comparable" penetration to Kongo's, they will have considerably better penetration.

- HP will actually be comparable. D&S full load at 35.5k tons, Hiei at 36.4k.

- I don't understand what your point is about the difference between tiers 6 and 7. Aren't we discussing Tier 5 vs Tier 6?

- Wargaming uses full load for hit points, not standard.

- Strasbourg was better armored than her sister, with an ~11.2" belt. That's why the discussion has focused on her. Her belt is equivalent to Fuso and her deck is better, so unless you feel like Fuso is getting crushed like a bug in game, it's odd to expect the same of D&S.

- DPM and barrels beat range and alpha in the meta, true, but angling and flat arcs are both very powerful in the current meta and the all-forward arrangements and high-velocity 13"s have those in spades.

[Julius_Persi]

My wallet is Ready ;D!.

 

Those ships are my favourites from Navyfield, the Dunkerque for his manouverability, the strasbourg as a pocket Battlecruiser and Richeliu who can pwns everyone with good tactics. I think that the problems is that everyone focus on his main guns to  broke or unitilice his guns, the lack of fallback tactics, but could be pretty awesome for close combat battles with good angling.

 

 

 

[SinqueScheiDeMona]

Who goes to war at standard displacement?  The guns are capable low alpha lasers which will have a higher rpm to balance. There will be a different play style big whoop. Scharnhorst will appear first with 11" guns so this is not a unique situation. Not to mention we have Tirpitz with 8 15" high velocity guns in a 16" paradise tier and in this same tier will be KGV. Not everything should be an exact clone.