Those Cruising Cruisers that Cruise the 7 seas, Defining them

[kenki11]

 

Alright I would like to ask you silly monkeys what you think those silly cruisers are out there for.

 

We have currently in the game 4 types of cruisers..

 

Wait kenki 4 types ? Yep 4 types..  Heres some "rough" examples.

Battle Cruiser: Kongou and her sisters are an example of the battle cruiser, they are known as "pocket battleships" in the naval world. They arn't nessarly battleships and they arn't nessarly cruisers.

Light Cruiser: Omaha, Cleveland, Kuma

Armored Cruiser: St. Lewis, Des Montes , Zao

Destroyer Cruiser: The RU line of destroyers at tier 6 and higher, switch from proper destroyers to these weird hybrids of destroyer cruiser.. Gremi, Atlanta so on that play like destroyers yet are known to be more like cruisers.

 

So ok kenki we see you have 4 here, well according to wargaming , cruisers are supposed to do 4-5 things.

1: Scout, and clear some of the way ahead using hydro search / scout plane fighter

2: Seek out and destroy destroyers

3: Provide fire support for battleships on the line

4: Provide AAA support for the battleships encase of torpedo bombers, dive bombers, so on and so forth.

5: To be a XP goody bag for battleship drivers to get critical hits on, and waste space because RU and USN DD's can do all those things, in some form or fashion or become fire dragons that spew the HE and make the BB's have the burning sensations. 

 

Wanna know how I know about that..

Look at at youtube of course... so many videos out there from wargaming and other contributors so meh.

 

So lets see what is happening in world of warships at high tiers.

 

Battleships do some sort of circle dosey do around the spawn.. no fun for cruisers, how can they scout.. destroyer finds them they get sniped die. Simple enough Battleships punch and citidel the cruiser like their supposed to, destroyers spot the cruiser, simple enough their doing their job spotting.. so what does our little cruiser do in this silly noob sensation of camping the spawn.. well nothing really.

 

No BB's moving up means Cruisers arn't allowed to scout, No CV's up because of BB's having such high AAA so they don't have a need to protect vs aircraft much, well humm, ok what about fire support.. oh right nope they can't BB's camping at spawn can't leave the spawn in a cruiser those pesky DD's and BB's will focus fire a forward cruiser before you can say poi. Ok ok then, What about clearing destroyers.. well nope, need to be able to leave the spawn to do that, destroyers have captain + ship mods to reduce stealth, USN gunboats  and RU dds can smash its head out in a group, hydro and scout planes don't have enough range, once again no CV's to help scout and clear the way for the cruiser.. so no that isn't doing well. 

 

So I mean we established that the line isn't doing its job.. So we've defined what is going on with a cruiser, seems funny all these problems.. are the battleship drivers fault... why are the battleship drivers camping destroyers.. why are the destroyers running rampent, lack of cruisers.. funny that.. battleships causing problems once agian.. wonder why we don't give them a nerf bat.. i mean its world of warships, not world of battleships..

 

Oh I know I have a suggestion.. bring back the kitty kat.

That'd get them pesky BB's moving for sure muahaha,.

 

 

Honestly though, cruiser's do their job quite well, but people forget its a team game, not a one man show, leave them spawns, go out and drive some, maybe just maybe.. we can get cruisers to start screening those pesky DD's since they have those good BB's to help them out. Seems the "citadel" damage mechanic is what is hampering this, just a though.

 

Just maybe cruisers need a LOT higher stealth ratings then they have, funny PT of British cruisers being like Atlanta's break the game, because of their high rate of rapid fire and causing fires... which causes those pesky BB's to spawn camp.. so a HE rework might help , however maybe apply it with AP too, so those pesky BB drivers have to aim at different segments of the ship too and give those cruisers some ability to perform those roles.

 

Now is my idea good, probable not but just a though... people take this game way to seriously , wg follows the same ole chic they follow with the cvs. They nerf the wrong things on the wrong ships at the wrong tiers. A lot of data gets misinterpreted , people have play-style issues, meta comes and goes..  Just it seems to me, taking a double look at survivability of cruisers vs battleships, as well as adjusting damage mechanics in relation to moduels rather then %s of health, may be a way to go.

 

If you read this post completely, good job.. if not well.. all I can say is that well..

 

Last but not least..

 

 

[Stratego89]

Can't tell if thinly veiled kitakami thread or mad genius... 

 

[kenki11]

Can't tell if thinly veiled kitakami thread or mad genius... 

 

Ok i'll admit it, the kit kat comment was a joke.. (I do want the kit kat for Christmas though, but, nah just saying, I wish the community as a whole would stop thinking everything is individual merit when its a team game)

 

I really do think that if sniping is that much of a problem, and I do agree to a margin that the fire mechanic has always been a bit.. well needs a better point of view (how are DD's supposed to fight BB's when their torps are re-arming, fire is their only way) and (how are some of the cruisers supposed to fight some of the BB's like the yamato when they dont have the penetration required, so they are forced to use HE which causes the fire problem to be worse.) 

 

Of course the BB's don't want to die too quick, but at the same time, the way the damage system is going for the scale.. things just are well, definatly being a major issue compared to what it needs to be, the only solution I can see that retains somewhat damage balance is to re-apply the stealth.. let the DD's spot the cruisers, which spot for the DD's , while the BB's take out the cruisers , or the DD's help take out the BB's while the cruiser is spotting for them)

 

IE: Spotting and fire as well as fire range is probable causing more problems then the damage and armors.

[anonym_fq0mysJjF8X6]

I am a expert on cruisers. 

Cruisers are grey green in color, and have guns.

Glad I was of some help..

[DelroyMonjo]

Thing is,  with this 5 BB,  4 or 5 DD meta we have,  that only leaves room for 2 or 3 more ships.  If the Cruisers support the DD's they can be spotted by enemy BB's long before friendly DD's will be spotted and if your friendly cruiser is even just at the edge of his spotting range for BB's and fires at a spotted enemy DD

 

[DerKrampus]

The kitakamissar.  If you want the BBs to move forward, put something scarier behind them. 

[Komrad_B]

Alright I would like to ask you silly monkeys what you think those silly cruisers are out there for.

 

We have currently in the game 4 types of cruisers..

 

Wait kenki 4 types ? Yep 4 types..  Heres some "rough" examples.

Battle Cruiser: Kongou and her sisters are an example of the battle cruiser, they are known as "pocket battleships" in the naval world. They arn't nessarly battleships and they arn't nessarly cruisers.

Light Cruiser: Omaha, Cleveland, Kuma

Armored Cruiser: St. Lewis, Des Montes , Zao

Destroyer Cruiser: The RU line of destroyers at tier 6 and higher, switch from proper destroyers to these weird hybrids of destroyer cruiser.. Gremi, Atlanta so on that play like destroyers yet are known to be more like cruisers.

 

 

Sorry to nitpick but...

Battlecruisers are not cruisers... Or at least they are 90% battleship and 10% cruiser. Battlecruisers have 5x the tonnage of cruisers and armament twice or thrice the caliber. Even the weakest armored battlecruiser has far superior armor to the best cruisers. They are a variant of battleships essentially and this is why they are battleships ingame.

 

And they are not known as "pocket battleships", thats the nickname given by a british journalist to mock the Deutschland class heavy cruisers. Battlecruisers are sometimes larger than battleships due to the machinery needed to bring these monsters to high speeds, so calling them pocket battleships makes no sense.

 

Now on to Armored Cruiser. The St. Louis is an armored cruiser. Armored cruisers are old pre-ww1 designs, they were ancestors of the heavy cruisers, which is what you confused that class of ship with. Essentially Armored Cruisers were like pre-dreadnought battleships in that they had a few large main guns and a huge quantity of small caliber guns. They were heavily armored, but slow. Battlecruisers made that class of ship obselete. Similar are Protected Cruisers (the tier 2 cruisers, basically) which were cheaper and a bit faster than armored cruisers.

 

Heavy Cruisers, commonly known as ''CA'' include all the 200mm armed interwar and WW2 cruisers. Des Moines, Zao, Ibuki, Moskva ect.

 

Oh and ''destroyer cruisers'' are not a thing. They are gunboats.

 

Light Cruisers the easy way to define them is that they use smaller caliber guns, usually 155mm. How to classify the 180mm of the Russians is anyone's guess but to me they are heavy cruisers.

 

 

 

[Eisennagel]

 

Cruisers --- spiritual successors to the Frigate of the Golden Age of Sail.  They are meant to operate independently across the vast oceans; true blue water ships.

 

Cruisers over the years.

 

Protected Cruisers --- Essentially the cruiser's "citadel" is protected by a turtleback covered by storage.  This type of cruiser, like the St. Louis in the game, went out when coal went out of fashion as a fuel source.

 

Armored Cruiser --- Not represented in the game.  These are like mini-battleships, have guns as high as 12" caliber.  The USN had a number of these with 10" guns and called them ACRs.  The Germans referred to these as Grosse Kreuzer.  

 

Battle Cruiser --- A counter to the Armored Cruiser.  Some view them as fast battleships, others as evolution of the Armored Cruiser.  

 

Light Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser --- Armored Cruisers led to first naval arms race of the 20th Century, and Battle Cruisers were meant to counter them.  After the First World War, treaties were signed that effectively removed the Armored Cruiser out of existence.  These treaties defined Light Cruisers as those with up to 6" guns, and limited cruiser guns only up to 8", which became the Heavy Cruisers.

 

Scout Cruiser --- USN term only.  Used to describe ships like the Omaha and the Pensacola.   

 

Spahkreuzer --- German for "scout cruiser".  Essentially, a big super destroyer.  Germans planned to build them but never happened.

 

Fleet Cruiser --- Flottenkreuzer emphasized speed and reconnaissance.  These are meant to succeed German light cruisers like the Coln and the Karlsruhe, and are patterned after the British C class cruisers (in the game soon) which can be described as the first true fleet cruisers.  IJN light cruisers are also inspired from the British mold, and the never built German M class cruiser are also meant with this concept.  Spahkreuzers and Flottenkreuzers are both meant to have 150mm guns but that's where their similarities end.

 

Cruisers that sort of happened, informally.

 

Torpedo Cruiser --- A cruiser centered around torpedo armament, e.g. Kitakami.

 

Anti Aircraft Cruiser --- Cruiser centered around anti aircraft armament, e.g. Atlanta.  

 

Destroyer Leader --- Small, fast, light or scout cruisers meant to lead destroyer flotillas, e.g. Kuma.   Also used to describe larger, gunboat style destroyers.  The Tashkent is often called the "Blue Cruiser" in wartime.  The Spahkreuzer also falls under this category.  Flotilla leaders can range from ships like the Agano class to purposedly designed ships like the project the Budyonny is based from.

 

Training Cruiser --- Primary purpose was to train crews, e.g. Katori.  Koenigsburg class, Leipzig and Nurnberg were mainly used to train crews in WW2, especially sub crews.  Nurnberg continued her crew training duties for decades more after being repatriated to the Soviet Union.  One characteristic of these ships are hybrid steam-diesel powerplants.

 

Large Light Cruiser --- Huge light cruisers, weighing as much or more than heavy cruisers with 12 guns, e.g. Cleveland, Kutuzov, Belfast.

 

Aviation Cruiser --- Cruisers meant to carry spotting and scouting seaplanes, e.g. Tone and Ooyodo class.

 

Panzerschiffe --- "Armored Ship".  Essentially a spiritual descendant to the Armored Cruiser, e.g. Graf Spee.

 

Merchant Cruiser, Auxiliary Cruiser --- Merchant ship with guns.

 

Modern Times:

 

Destroyers and Frigates have up sized and literally taking the role of cruisers.  This leaves cruisers as a class of ship larger than both, primarily with at least 10,000 ton displacement.

 

Guided Missile Cruiser, e.g. Kirov class, Slava class, Ticos.  The soon to be built Chinese Type 055 maybe the first cruiser sized warships built this side of Asia since the Tone class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Citrusss]

i short circuited when i saw St.Luis and Des Moines in the same category... 

 

 

 

Also, put back those t10 CVs in the game and you will see how obsolete all these AA buffs to BBs are, you do need DM with AA build to make a difference. few days ago I was greeted by Midway on my AA built battleship and left watching the battle as a spectator. 

[Bill_Halsey]

The problem with CA's in the game is that they're too big to hide, too fragile to tank and not maneuverable enough to evade. Also the 5 BB/5 DD MM meta makes them the prime target in the opening stages of the match by the BB's. So far, CA AP shells have done nothing but bounce off ships, even other CA's at 10-15 km range in the CA's I've played. SO HE spamming is the go to technique. My main tactic right now is to stay behind the BB's and spam HE at targets. And if targeted, run in the opposite direction and pray you get out of there. Unless you're a Kutuzov, in which case you pop smoke and run away. The only exception would be the IJN CA line since they can launch torps. The new -40% rudder shift patch might work. We'll have to see.

[kenki11]

Ah here we go, I posted it half asleep, but lets respond to things here.

 

People :p nit picking over a ship of armored / protected, but your right St.Lewis is protected cruiser my bad,. anyway.

 

Outside of the nitpicks of people nitpicking the wrong things in my post lets see who actually commented on the meat and potatoes.

 

The kitakamissar.  If you want the BBs to move forward, put something scarier behind them. 

 

That was half of the reason I was thinking kit kat needs to be back in game, nothing else gonna get your ships to move then 40 torpedos of love and affection heading your way, you'd be hiding fast lol.

 

i short circuited when i saw St.Luis and Des Moines in the same category... 

 

Also, put back those t10 CVs in the game and you will see how obsolete all these AA buffs to BBs are, you do need DM with AA build to make a difference. few days ago I was greeted by Midway on my AA built battleship and left watching the battle as a spectator. 

 

Ok agian, this post was written at 3 am :p, however lets comment on the other part. You are right if we re-established world of midway tier 10 that would most defiantly prove how useless that AA buffs to BB are, which agian would make those silly little battleships move, however.. the pin point droopiness and the "overly too fast speeds" of the midway would not be a good answer to this problem, Tier 7 cv play the ranger is very under powered compared to its other ships, would like to see a ranger buff for its strike package tbh. However, at higher tiers CV's alone really won't make those fuzzballs move, they would stick even closer trying to do what their intended to do "group up as a lemming train to support their AA as a determinant to the striking CV".  WG does not keep this mindset in mind that fleets are honestly intended to act like a lemming train at times, as naval tactics do dictate that but to each their own.

 

 Oh and ''destroyer cruisers'' are not a thing. They are gunboats.

 

Again, I was trying to over simplify things grouping play styles, its not a technical name, its just a way to infer play-style of how you would be intended to play it. Also wargaming themselves said those are light cruisers that are in the RU ship line for destroyers, so, the term is at least a little on the mark even if its not proper.

 

The problem with CA's in the game is that they're too big to hide, too fragile to tank and not maneuverable enough to evade. Also the 5 BB/5 DD MM meta makes them the prime target in the opening stages of the match by the BB's. So far, CA AP shells have done nothing but bounce off ships, even other CA's at 10-15 km range in the CA's I've played. SO HE spamming is the go to technique. My main tactic right now is to stay behind the BB's and spam HE at targets. And if targeted, run in the opposite direction and pray you get out of there. Unless you're a Kutuzov, in which case you pop smoke and run away. The only exception would be the IJN CA line since they can launch torps. The new -40% rudder shift patch might work. We'll have to see.

 

Aye, cookies for you, you actually commented on the post. You are correct and not correct, the 5 BB / 5 DD MM meta is not really a thing, its the fact that the players want to play BB's and DD's because the CA's just arn't that fun.. their like CV's you like them around but... you don't really find them fun a lot to be around. CA's are kinda like that babysitter class like the CV, they are intended to scout but they can't they are intended to fight destroyers but they can't due to stealth mechanics being a bit too fine tuned to destroyer play at higher level captains stacking that stealth.

 

A side note, at one point in time every DD thought hydro would break the game, for destroyers but once players got used to it, it sort of became a "meh" same thing with scout planes, Manual controlling scout plane fighters with the RU and USN DD's able to swat it down now, should come back to being a thing. I really REALLY doubt that it would break the game anymore, outside making it a bit of an annoyance for ijn torpedo captains that get their torps spotted which could be fixed if you removed air craft from being able to spot it. Still think we should have the float plane dive bombers that a lot of BB and CA skippers had in the actual war to deter the invis firing nonsense at higher tiers.. Seriously press P to deal with the plane, leave the area for a bit, come back, its a deterrent but doesn't destroy DD game-play that much, ijn destroyers again prob only ones who may have issues thus far.

 

Also, the CA AP shells really do need to be able to be a BIT more punchy vs BB's , you'd see a lot less fires, which would make things a bit where fire is intended to go "for the destroyers" but, BB's would cry that a CA can deal damage to a BB so that'd never happen. (BB's get a lot of the premiums for a reason.. they are the most popular class, DD being 2nd most popular because you can troll and pick on the BB's) CA's don't get any real love because they cannot fight back the BB while a BB can easily fight back at a DD with its manual secondary skill, and proper use of AWSD or knowing rudder shift times for destroyers.

 

CA's just don't really fit anywhere they aren't that smexy outside the kit kat but almost all cruisers really do have that problem of being that 1 trick pony... I mean the Bismark have hydro for heaven sakes.. that is how bad CA's are being redundant, BB's are taking the CA's job and they STILL camp at the spawn in circles.. 

 

 

 

 

[userz123]

 

Heavy Cruisers, commonly known as ''CA'' include all the 200mm armed interwar and WW2 cruisers. Des Moines, Zao, Ibuki, Moskva ect.

 

Moskva is not a heavy cruisers its more like a battle cruiser since it's so dam big.

[Grizley]

The kitakamissar.  If you want the BBs to move forward, put something scarier behind them. 

 

Huh, this actually gives me an idea to try on some maps.

 

Instead of the fleets spawning on different sides of the map all together.  Half of the teams DDs spawn behind the enemy team.  

[VTAdmiral]

The only cruisers that matter are

Light Cruisers

Heavy Cruisers

and Russian Cruisers

[kenki11]

 

Huh, this actually gives me an idea to try on some maps.

 

Instead of the fleets spawning on different sides of the map all together.  Half of the teams DDs spawn behind the enemy team.  

 

^_^ Yes feel the power of the troll lol.

[mofton]

Large Light Cruiser --- Huge light cruisers, weighing as much or more than heavy cruisers with 12 guns, e.g. Cleveland, Kutuzov, Belfast.

I thought 'Large Light Cruiser' was used to refer to Fisher's Glorious, Furious and Courageous and was more of a designation to get around higher approval for 'large armored ships' than a serious one. Those ships are bonkers though, glad they were converted to carriers.

 

I wouldn't necessarily split something like a Cleveland, Belfast or Kutuzov from a Nurnburg or Leander by class.

 

 

As for the main argument I'd agree that cruisers are a little undefined in game, that's why (to me) they end up with all the unjustifiable consumables:

Defensive fire - because being shot by a few Aoba guns 'trying really hard' is scarier than the 20 5in guns and bofors forest of a Montana.... right.

Hydroacoustic - some cruisers did have hydrophones and some ASDIC, but far more of a 'destroyer thing' and only one destroyer gets it

Radar - well, battleships were priorities for it, destroyers got it too, why only cruisers?

 

Cruisers at higher tiers also start to lose out in speed advantage to the corresponding battleships.

 

You can cruiser well but it takes the skill to know when to sneak and when to strike, where to push and where to walk small.

[Kevik70]

Watching this Jingles video, now that I know a lot about what I'm doing makes me want to cringe. No wonder he'd mostly miss with torpedoes, its because he fired them all at the same spot instead of making a wider spread. Which in practice increases the chance of torpedoes hitting the target even if they do some slight maneuvering.  Needless to say it was very painful watching all those wasted torps as a DD captain who loves torping people.

[HazardDrake]

Watching this Jingles video, now that I know a lot about what I'm doing makes me want to cringe. No wonder he'd mostly miss with torpedoes, its because he fired them all at the same spot instead of making a wider spread. Which in practice increases the chance of torpedoes hitting the target even if they do some slight maneuvering.  Needless to say it was very painful watching all those wasted torps as a DD captain who loves torping people.

Exactly. There is a time and a place to dump all your launchers on top of each other, but it's as if it has never occurred to him that he can spread them out as well.

 

You see so many launches that would have gotten hits if they had not been so greedy and fired one in front and one behind the indicator instead of all of them stacked on top.

[Grizley]

 

Sorry to nitpick but...

Battlecruisers are not cruisers... Or at least they are 90% battleship and 10% cruiser. Battlecruisers have 5x the tonnage of cruisers and armament twice or thrice the caliber. Even the weakest armored battlecruiser has far superior armor to the best cruisers. They are a variant of battleships essentially and this is why they are battleships ingame.

 

And they are not known as "pocket battleships", thats the nickname given by a british journalist to mock the Deutschland class heavy cruisers. Battlecruisers are sometimes larger than battleships due to the machinery needed to bring these monsters to high speeds, so calling them pocket battleships makes no sense.

 

Now on to Armored Cruiser. The St. Louis is an armored cruiser. Armored cruisers are old pre-ww1 designs, they were ancestors of the heavy cruisers, which is what you confused that class of ship with. Essentially Armored Cruisers were like pre-dreadnought battleships in that they had a few large main guns and a huge quantity of small caliber guns. They were heavily armored, but slow. Battlecruisers made that class of ship obselete. Similar are Protected Cruisers (the tier 2 cruisers, basically) which were cheaper and a bit faster than armored cruisers.

 

Heavy Cruisers, commonly known as ''CA'' include all the 200mm armed interwar and WW2 cruisers. Des Moines, Zao, Ibuki, Moskva ect.

 

Oh and ''destroyer cruisers'' are not a thing. They are gunboats.

 

Light Cruisers the easy way to define them is that they use smaller caliber guns, usually 155mm. How to classify the 180mm of the Russians is anyone's guess but to me they are heavy cruisers.

 

 

 

 

A couple of things.

 

You're way off on the tonnage of Battlecruisers.  A treaty cruiser displaces 10,000 tons, the Iowa 45,000, Yamatomato 65,000.  Though of course treaty cruisers predate both of those, being a contemporary of the standards. Those displace in the range of 30,000 tons.  The Des Moines for reference displaces 20,000 tons.   By your logic Yamato isn't large enough to be a battlecruiser, since 5x 20,000 is 100,000 or > 65,000.

 

The destroyer cruisers he's talking about are things like the Atlanta, Tashkent etc that are designed to operate with a group of destroyers.  Destroyer leaders was the USN term.  No comment on why the USN version is classed as a CL while the Russian version is classed as a DD.  Though I will admit, the sheer number of guns on an Atlanta is staggering.

[Grizley]

 

^_^ Yes feel the power of the troll lol.

 

It actually strikes me as a pretty good idea.  One of the reason BBs camp is they feel safer doing it.

 

Lets say they load into a match and see 2 IJN, 1 USN and 1 VMF DDs on the other team.  Two of those are randomly chosen to spawn say 10-15km behind the battleships.

 

Now it could be the VMF DD and they will get a warning as shells start hitting them, but then again it could be the IJN or USN DDs, and if they're sitting still they could be sitting there bow on camping and then WHAM, 15 torps doing what 24k each?  Yeah, I don't car what your torpedo bulge says, that's going to leave a mark.

[kenki11]

Watching this Jingles video, now that I know a lot about what I'm doing makes me want to cringe. No wonder he'd mostly miss with torpedoes, its because he fired them all at the same spot instead of making a wider spread. Which in practice increases the chance of torpedoes hitting the target even if they do some slight maneuvering.  Needless to say it was very painful watching all those wasted torps as a DD captain who loves torping people.

 

Exactly. There is a time and a place to dump all your launchers on top of each other, but it's as if it has never occurred to him that he can spread them out as well.

 

You see so many launches that would have gotten hits if they had not been so greedy and fired one in front and one behind the indicator instead of all of them stacked on top.

 

Yep I figured that video was an excellent way of explaining the situation , from what happened then to what is happening now. Since a lot of the player base has grown a bit more aware of some of the torpedo mechanics. To be honest, I was just using the kitkat video as more a focal point of the post to say that cruisers just don't have that "fear factor" they used to with destroyers. We have so many anti-destroyer destroyers out now, the hydro could just be given to them at this point and the cruiser lines themselves could get a rework.