USN vs. IJN vs. KM Battleships Comparison

[Altrunchen]

Introduction:

So I'm the kind of player who comes and goes from WOWs every now and then. I tend to play for brief spurts here and here and when I do I tend to focus a lot on it. Recently the German battleships have caused me to wonder how they stack up against the American and Japanese battleships. I remember being in a battle playing as an ARP Haruna when someone said that German battleships are best for tanking and I believe they said that Japanese ones are the most fun. But this left me wondering if USN battleships hold any advantage other than AA over the others.

 

With this question in mind, I decided to go to a site that compares various ship statistics for this game. I will post here some of my findings.  But the reason I'm posting this is that after some searching I don't seem to have found some up-to-date threads about this, most of the comparisons between BBs seemed to happen last year. As such I'm hoping to give a contemporary look at the issue alongside you guys so that we can perhaps better understand the situation.

 

Comparisons:

These comparisons were found off of the site: https://warshipstats.com/compare/

I compared the T6 battleships across each nation to get a better understanding of this for a start. I intend to post comparisons at different tiers as well. Each of the ships compared here are being compared with their top modules installed.

 

USN T6 (New Mexico) vs. IJN T6 (Fuso)

 

USN T6 (New Mexico) vs. KM T6 (Bayern)

 

IJN T6 (Fuso) vs. KM T6 (Bayern)

 

Category Leaders:

Overall these are the battleships that, when compared with the other two, are the best in their category:

 

Hit Points: Fuso (IJN)

Survivability: New Mexico (USN)

Artillery: Fuso (IJN) / Bayern (KM)

AA Guns: Bayern (KM)

Maneuverability: Bayern (KM)

Concealment: New Mexico (USN)

 

Hull Armor: Bayern (KM)

Citadel Armor: New Mexico (USN)

Deck Armor: New Mexico (USN)

Extremity Armor: Bayern (KM)

 

Maximum Speed: Bayern (KM)

Turning Radius: Bayern (KM)

Rudder Shift Time: Fuso (IJN)

 

Guns: Fuso (IJN)

Barrels per Gun: New Mexico (USN)

Maximum Shell Dispersion: Fuso (IJN)

Rotation Time: Bayern (KM)

Distance: Fuso (IJN)

Fire Rate: Fuso (IJN) / Bayern (KM)

Max AP Damage: Bayern (KM)

Max HE Damage: Fuso (IJN)

HE Burn Probability: Bayern (KM)

 

Overall Leaders:

After tallying up the category leader results these are the scores for number of categories the ships were the best in:

 

1st Place: Bayern (KM): 11

2nd Place: Fuso (IJN): 8

3rd Place: New Mexico (USN): 5

 

Conclusion:

As far as the number of categories that a ship led in, the Bayern led by 3 categories ahead of the Fuso, which led by 3 categories ahead of the New Mexico. So it seems that the T6 KM battleship is much better than the USN battleships and a little bit better than the IJN battleships. But these methods may be flawed, and these comparisons do not take skill and/or experience into account. So I ask you all, what do you think?

 

Discussion:

The comparisons are all well and good on "paper" but I want to know what you all think from experience. So I'm hoping to start a conversation that compares the battleships of the three nations across the board here not just from a statistical standpoint, but also an experiential one. So in an attempt to stir up discussion I'm going to add a simple poll to this thread asking people which one they prefer. Hopefully that will lead to some deeper discussion as well.

[SergeantHop]

Gneisenau is not the tier 6 German battleship. It even very clearly says 7 on the comparisons.

[Altrunchen]

Gneisenau is not the tier 6 German battleship. It even very clearly says 7 on the comparisons.

 

Yup I realized that the very moment I posted it. By the time of your post I had already corrected it.

[X15]

This would feel more relevant if one didn't always see tier 7-8 games but the Bayern is my favorite for tier 6. Up-tiered tho, I prefer the Fuso.

Overall I'd say it goes like this

Good --- Bad

t3 KM IJN USN

t4 KM USN IJN

t5 IJN KM USN

t6 KM IJN USN

t7 KM IJN USN

t8 USN KM IJN

t9 USN KM IJN

t10 IJN KM USN

[Nuk_]

This would feel more relevant if one didn't always see tier 7-8 games but the Bayern is my favorite for tier 6. Up-tiered tho, I prefer the Fuso.

Overall I'd say it goes like this

Good --- Bad

t3 KM IJN USN

t4 KM USN IJN

t5 IJN KM USN

t6 KM IJN USN

t7 KM IJN USN

t8 USN KM IJN

t9 USN KM IJN

t10 IJN KM USN

 

For me, it'd be a switch between the Nagato, Colorado, Gneisenau at tier 7 and the NM in first at tier 6.

[Altrunchen]

This would feel more relevant if one didn't always see tier 7-8 games but the Bayern is my favorite for tier 6. Up-tiered tho, I prefer the Fuso.

Overall I'd say it goes like this

Good --- Bad

t3 KM IJN USN

t4 KM USN IJN

t5 IJN KM USN

t6 KM IJN USN

t7 KM IJN USN

t8 USN KM IJN

t9 USN KM IJN

t10 IJN KM USN

 

So by your opinion the KM battleships are the best in 40% of the tiers, the IJN battleships are best in 20% of the tiers, and the USN battleships are best in 20% of the tiers?

 

Hmm, that makes me wonder if the USN leads in any categories whatsoever. I have heard that IJN destroyers are better than the others, and I certainly think they're better than USN destroyers. But that just makes me wonder which nations have the best carriers and cruisers.

[KingCakeBaby]

There is a disease among these games that just because the stats of one is higher than the other it must mean that it is intrinsically better than the other. I think you guys need to focus less on good and bad and more on the roles each ship is designed to encompass.

[Altrunchen]

There is a disease among these games that just because the stats of one is higher than the other it must mean that it is intrinsically better than the other. I think you guys need to focus less on good and bad and more on the roles each ship is designed to encompass.

 

Your point is well taken honestly, that's why I wanted to see what people thought about the ships based on their personal experiences and not just based on statistics.

[Hereticus2142]

Personally I'm not sold on any argument based on popularity because of how skewed that result would be.... The 'murica Freedom Patriots love American BB,  Anime fans love there waifu ships, the middle-school self-proclaimed WW2 Experts love there German diesel punk machinery.   All three stereotypes will argue to the death why there BB is the end all, be all.

 

Stat wise the three BB listed by the OP in particular seem relatively fine in my personnel experience,  When played casually vs played appropriately I haven't noticed any glaringly obvious advantage one has over the other or been particularly frustrated in a fight against any one.

 

Other BB of the nations lines though do not offer the same comfort.  Expecting a Battlecruiser to stand equal up against a Super Dreadnought/Battleship or being left to wonder how a Pocket-Battleship can absorb hits better then a full-fledged battleship.  It's this stuff that  makes me look forward to a potential line-split in the distant future akin to what we're getting soon for  the Japanese DD.

 

Not that the OP has presented these kind of stats but out of fear of what potentially could devolve into...  When comparing stats I remember in a separate thread that tried to compare the stat differences of each ship (looking at KDR or Damage Dealt) that you have to be cautious or leery of the numbers because example: KDR stats are skewed from supersaturation of whats flavor-of-the-month,  Allot of German ships killing German ships because everyone's playing the new German ships skews the numbers for comparing a German ship vs a US or IJN Ship.

[Submarine_Wahoo]

 

So by your opinion the KM battleships are the best in 40% of the tiers, the IJN battleships are best in 20% of the tiers, and the USN battleships are best in 20% of the tiers?

 

Hmm, that makes me wonder if the USN leads in any categories whatsoever. I have heard that IJN destroyers are better than the others, and I certainly think they're better than USN destroyers. But that just makes me wonder which nations have the best carriers and cruisers.

 

American destroyers dominate the destroyer selections from T6 to T9 while being fairly equal to others at lower tiers.