British Coastal is severely neglected

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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Right, this may seem like a slightly unhinged rant coming from me, but here goes.

The British coastal line has to be one of the most pathetic jokes of a tech tree I have ever played in my 2-year-long boat journey. From what I heard Britain’s tree used to be fairly good until it became evident it could not follow the ever-changing state of coastal and now it is nothing but a shell of its former self. Most of their boats are among some of the most frustrating I have ever played.

There have been no new tech tree boats (besides the Fremantle) since March 2023 with the Terra Nova, unlike the other nations which actually got more than a couple of boats (the Soviets get the special treatment for obvious reasons.) over that same timespan. Besides the frigates, all of the boats (perhaps except the Fremantle and Grey Fox) are egregiously bad and so fragile even a small pebble would be more than enough to destroy them. In essence, they are the Japanese destroyers of coastal, without the bonkers torpedoes.

What I have a gripe with the most are the dreaded Fairmiles. All of them have an atrocious armament suite (the 57mm autoloaders, while they do good damage are unwieldy) but when used to their almost limited strengths (ambushes) they can perform okay. Hell, there are even other boats that are lower BRs than them and yet they can do a far better job than those glorified toy boats (yes I am looking at you R-130.) Unless you somehow catch them by surprise, you stand NO chance against the many Soviet and German armoured boats and artillery ferries. Additionally, you have to suffer through them in order to actually progress in the tree at rank 3-4, so it would just be best to folder them somehow.

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peak fairmile gameplay (the pr.206 merely serves as a hyperbole device)

The 12.7 mm Vickers and 40 mm pom-poms commonly found in mid-tier are simply woeful compared to their respective counterparts found at the same BR. Unlike their counterparts (the M2 Browning and Bofors 40mm), they do below average damage (owing to their WWI origins) and not only that you also cannot fire continuously on the pom-poms which is a significant disadvantage compared to them. With such poor stopping power, it’s almost like as if you’re throwing rocks rather than actually dealing damage to even other boats that are the same BR as you. Simply put, the guns are hopelessly outdated.

However, I will list a couple of very worthy candidates for the tree so that it can stand a chance against the Soviet-German meta.

LCG(L) 3

Spoiler

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Essentially the British answer to the AF D1/D3, with destroyer guns. A very tanky boat, it will guarantee some anti-destroyer capabilities.

Bay-class frigate

Spoiler

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A slower Calpe/Vega, yet it would be a good tech tree alternative to the Spey. Its dual 102mms will shred any destroyer to pieces if used correctly.

Of course, Gaijin could simply add more boats onto the tree but as the old saying goes: “No OnE pLaYs/CaReS aBoUt NaVaL”, and the Snail knows this very well, so we will almost never see any changes or additions to the tree.

alright rant over

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British Tax bud, that’s why the TT sucks, plus not having large coastal warships sucks for the brits since they built quite a few while in game all trees are given handmedown bluewater ships late in the TT’s.

The Type 41 used to be a powerhouse warship for the TT but they increased the BR & gutted its damage models a few years ago (see Gunships video on it pre nerf for example).

Sidenote the LCG(M) was meant to apparently be added sometime around when the french got their post war version, So a LCG(M) & your LCG(L) should honestly be added but they’d wouldn’t be an anti DD ship tbh unless the DD isn’t paying attention.

TBH it’s a surprise the British haven’t gotten further WWII era frigates or the game hasn’t gotten another sloop yet but a Bay class, Castle class, Loch class, Black Swan class, or Q-ships, An hell a Type 15 conversion or Any later Type 12’s should be added although the economics need critical changing if we’re to get further frigates as tbh the Type 41 in game is the most expensive ship to run per match (followed by the Ayanami class Destroyer) due to repairs & per minute ammunition costs (used to be 4800 sl per minute but is now 4400 sl minute if firing anything but HE).

There’s a few more WWII light vessels the brits can get an furthermore commonwealth warships as seen by the Attack & Fremantle classes recently (Armidale class went? or its namesake plz gib HMAS Armidale J240 Bathurst class AMS), since South Africa, India are sub trees or further New Zealand, Australian & Canadian designs to fill up the trees.

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As somebody who grinded through British and Japanese costal without a premium boat the contrast couldn’t be more extreme.

Japan is more or less smooth sailing while great Britain is completely suffering up to Grey goose (the first British ship I would say is worth playing)

Peacock is great, but even then the top tier frigates lack behind compared to the other nations. They are generally very squishy have shit dispersion and die fast because of crew loss.

But the lower tiers up to grey goose you can completely forget (other than the 2 sub hunters)

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