USS Iowa

[RiskyKirkwood]

 Finally decided to get the Iowa after a couple months of holding off. I like the ship as a whole but to me, seems a bit over powered. Iowa can easily take a citadel but if her guns find you at the right angle, you'll pay for it dearly. A rather unfortunate North Carolina found out the hard way after taking 45,000 damage from one salvo at 13km away. This seems a bit too much for me since USN BBs are not good nor are they supposed to be good. USN BBs were poorly designed throughout the war but seem to be on steroids in this game. I know WG tries to balance out everything but is Iowa just too much? your thoughts? 

            

 

[Jinsemaj]

Was he broadside, cuz if he was, thats a paddlin.

[Lert]

That ... is not the Iowa balance thread I was expecting. +1 for not posting another "Waah Iowa sucks it was so much better than Tomato IRL" thread, at least.

 

As for your actual question, no I don't consider Iowa overpowered for its tier. Very good for its tier maybe, even if I couldn't make her work to save my life, but the fact that I couldn't get her to work possibly is a case that she isn't overpowered. Iowa needs a driver who understands her and can make her work, to be as strong as you feel she is.

 

There are many balance and meta problems at tier 9 / 10, but Iowas performance isn't one of them. In fact, her and Izumos stats are quite in line with 49.4% and 56.6k dpg vs 48.6% and 55k dpg respectively on NA server.

[donaldEpott]

I just did that much damage to a New York one broadside with the Arizona so I dont know why you think that is overpowered when you hit the citadel.

[Mordalen]

Iowa Damage is fine. Not poorly designed: a superb design. Terrific high speed hull shape from much research. Good armor scheme.

 

Iowa's were designed to fight Yamato's. NAVWEAPS says that the 16" 2700lb "super heavy" was nearly equal to Yamato's 18.1" in damage.

 

What data tells you that they were poorly designed?

[devastator5000]

Iowa Damage is fine. Not poorly designed: a superb design. Terrific high speed hull shape from much research. Good armor scheme.

 

Iowa's were designed to fight Yamato's. NAVWEAPS says that the 16" 2700lb "super heavy" was nearly equal to Yamato's 18.1" in damage.

 

What data tells you that they were poorly designed?

 

Most USN battleships had great fire control and armor its just most were old WW1 style ships and not enough to fight in combat

[Mordalen]

 

Most USN battleships had great fire control and armor its just most were old WW1 style ships and not enough to fight in combat

 

Huh? Read. The WW1 style ships in the pacific wound up at the bottom of Pearl harbor. The North Carolina Class & follow on classes including Iowa, were clean-sheet designs, built starting ~1935! Start reading here: http://www.navweaps.com/.

 

PS: Friendly advice: there are a lot of very sharp, knowledgeable Navy buffs on these forums. You will get fragged in a heartbeat, making unsubstantiated comments like that.

[devastator5000]

 

Huh? Read. The WW1 style ships in the pacific wound up at the bottom of Pearl harbor. The North Carolina Class & follow on classes including Iowa, were clean-sheet designs, built starting ~1935! Start reading here: http://www.navweaps.com/.

 

PS: Friendly advice: there are a lot of very sharp, knowledgeable Navy buffs on these forums. You will get fragged in a heartbeat, making unsubstantiated comments like that.

 

Texas, Pennsylvania, all of the Colorado class that participated in the battle of the Surigao Straight. Yes the USN lost battleships at Pearl the surviving WW1 era ships were great shore bombardment and helped many landings in the war, especially D-day. So they didnt fight in combat most anti-ship operations were lead by North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas

 

And the only ships actually sunk during pearl, were the Arizona due to her mag explosion, and the converted battleship Utah which was just a target ship at the time. Oklahoma was raised for scrap, and Nevada, California, and west Virginia still fought after their refit.

[RiskyKirkwood]

USN battleships up until the 1930s  were horribly designed ships. Take Texas for example..great ship with a lot of history but let's face it, the ship would have been sent to the bottom if involved in a gunfight with anything else. NC, Iowa and Montana are great designs but if I had to decide between say..Bismark or Iowa then I would put my money on Bismarck. I just feel like USN BBs lack in a lot of areas and while NC, Iowa and Montana make a ton of progress,  German and Japanese designs were just superior.  

[devastator5000]

USN battleships up until the 1930s  were horribly designed ships. Take Texas for example..great ship with a lot of history but let's face it, the ship would have been sent to the bottom if involved in a gunfight with anything else. NC, Iowa and Montana are great designs but if I had to decide between say..Bismark or Iowa then I would put my money on Bismarck. I just feel like USN BBs lack in a lot of areas and while NC, Iowa and Montana make a ton of progress,  German and Japanese designs were just superior.  

 

German an IJN designs had better characteristics, but in a fight I'd still bet money on the Iowa if she faced Bismark. Iowa was faster then Bismark by a decent amount, and she had one thing both IJN and German ships didnt have and thats Radar Directed fire, so good in fact that when she was refitted in the 80's they kept the analog computer instead of modernizing her to modern PCs

[Skramjet]

The USN tier 10, Montana, from everything ive heard, is painfully underpowered. The Iowa being good can, in some ways, help to cope for this. I don't feel Iowa is OP, if you angle well it cant just maul you. It's good, but not OP.

[TenguBlade]

Iowa's were designed to fight Yamato's. NAVWEAPS says that the 16" 2700lb "super heavy" was nearly equal to Yamato's 18.1" in damage.

 

What data tells you that they were poorly designed?

Not quite.  Navweps states they had similar penetration power at long ranges, mostly due to the steeper arc of the American shell.  Damage is not synonymous with penetration: Yamato's 18" AP shell had a much larger explosive charge, almost twice as much as Iowa's.  Even if you were to argue the inferior quality of Japanese weaponry (which in this case has dubious merit anyways) 75lbs of explosive will do a lot more damage than 41.

 

Iowa's armor is flawed in that it is incapable of withstanding its own weapons from any range.  The armor plan was drafted before the battleships were given the MK8 as a   That violates a classic maxim of battleship design philosophy, whether it's poor design depends on opinion from there.  I recall there were also glaring flaws in the bomb and torpedo protection systems.  The thread I read on that from has disappeared from my bookmarks for some reason though.

Huh? Read. The WW1 style ships in the pacific wound up at the bottom of Pearl harbor. The North Carolina Class & follow on classes including Iowa, were clean-sheet designs, built starting ~1935! Start reading here: http://www.navweaps.com/.

 

PS: Friendly advice: there are a lot of very sharp, knowledgeable Navy buffs on these forums. You will get fragged in a heartbeat, making unsubstantiated comments like that.

Except he's right.  The battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor that were raised and returned to service received fire-control radar, much more powerful anti-aircraft suites, and huge torpedo bulges, but by this time they were already outclassed in speed and firepower by the North Carolina and South Dakota classes hence why they were relegated to shore bombardment.  Speed was important in no small part because the IJN's workhorses were the Kongo-class which would run circles around a standard-type.

 

To the OP: in Alpha Iowa was the T10 but couldn't compete with the Yamato so they down-tiered her without nerfing her at all and put Montana in her place.  Just like the Myoko is still borderline OP for T7 despite being nerfed, Iowa is a very well-performing battleship for T9.  Personally I think it's fine if the USN gets to have their T9 be the queen of that tier's BBs, there would be too much salt on the forums from butthurt Iowa fans otherwise.  They get pissed already if you just say anything about the Yamato being better than Iowa regardless of context.

[Mordalen]

Cool. Thanks for the data. I stand corrected on the details. I do remember seeing that the North Carolina was designed to withstand a 14" (not 16") projectile.

 

P.S. Looking back from 2016, the difference between 1918 & 1936 seems small, but, to put it in perspective, 18 years ago cell phones were just into the digital age. BB development the same. WW1 era designs are not WW2 era designs.

 

PPS Yamato was a really nice design too. Better bow bulge for speed than Iowa. -gotta check into which hull form was overall more efficient...

[Mordalen]

http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/3503-the-official-iowa-vs-yamato-thread/#topmost

[BadlyBrowned]

The North Carolina and Iowa were both unbalanced designs in that their armor was not capable to withstand fire from its own guns because those guns were upgraded during the development process. The North Carolina originally intended with 12 14-inch guns and the Iowa an evolution of the South Dakota with 16-inch/45 guns. 

 

(Numbers from various books in my collection)

 

The North Carolina was designed with an immune zone between 19,000 - 30,000 yards against 14-inch guns (Like those on the Kongo-class battlecruisers).

 

To balance out the design, the South Dakota was developed and gave it an immunity zone up to 30,000 yards against the non-superheavy 16-inch/45 gun, but it shrunk to 26,000 yards against superheavy shells.

 

The Iowa was then supposed to address the shortcomings of the NC/SD in that they were not fast enough. Against 16in/45 guns it was designed for, the Iowa's armor had an immune at distances of 18,000 - 30,000 yards. Against the 16inch/50 gun, the immune zone shrank to between 23,600 - 27,400 yards.

[Vermel]

Good read and what has been the majority opinion of encountered by experts in naval architecture and design.

 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737?page=2