Crew are trash, no expertise, almost fullstock (Base shell)
I launch a game with my usual deck : ( First Bretagne almost full, with best APCBC and SAP for the secondaries, then Torpedo run with a plane, then Courbet to end the match)
Maybe it’s time to consider decompressing battleship battle and put all the french BB at 6.3 (305mm’ ship have more gun/RoF than 340mm so it will be balanced in my opinion) except Dunkerque and Strasbourg who are indeed better than Bretagne, Lorraine, Courbet and Paris…
I had a similar experience. The french BBs do next to nothing. I was firing with the spaded Lorraine at some light cruiser and I was getting hit reports. But the damage never went up. Very ineffective.
Especially now that they display how many shells penetrate, bounce, or explode without penetrating in each salvo.
Usually, between 5 and 10 km, only 1 out of 10 shells penetrates, causing minimal damage (about 1 to 5%).
Beyond 10 km, my salvos do no damage at all, except for the occasional lucky hit.
In my opinion, they are not broken. The issue is that they face heavily armored opponents that their 305/340 mm shells cannot penetrate. The last time I checked, these shells had the worst penetration capabilities at 10 km among all battleships. To be effective, they need to be close enough to deal damage or face similar opponents (WW1 battleships) at shorter ranges.
The bigger issue is that the Courbet class doesn’t survive any ammo detonation (similarly observed in German destroyer Z47). Even Nassau, Fuso and most other battleships can survive multiple ammo detonation.
