French Coastal Fleet Closed Testing Begins Soon™!

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In the upcoming Dance of Dragons major update, closed testing of the French Coastal fleet will begin. And today, we’ll be showing you what awaits its first testers!

As with other naval powers, the development of France’s coastal fleet in the 20th century was driven by the ever-changing demands for coastal defense, control of sea routes, and ensuring the security of national interests. And sometimes, extraordinary solutions were adopted to address these challenges.

With the introduction of France’s coastal fleet tree, the first boats will be agile light motor torpedo ones, including the successful VTB-8, VTB-9, and VTB-11 series. Naval enthusiasts will find the Vedette 40k VTB-19 particularly interesting, as it was a boat that served under three different flags: France, Britain, and Germany, each time equipped with different armaments and equipment. Another intriguing boat is the Arras sub-chaser disguised as a merchant ship, or as the French often called this class, “Aviso”. This relatively slow boat with artillery armament is almost like a mini destroyer! Additional similar boats will be added to the French coastal fleet line in the future.

There’s also several imported boats that testers can look forward to. These are mainly of British origin, such as the MTB Vosper torpedo boat and the iconic transport converted for landing support tasks, the LCG(M), familiar from footage of the Normandy landings. One of France’s top light ships will be the versatile P-730 Combattante, armed with a 40 mm automatic cannon and four SS.11 guided missiles!

Closed testing of the French Coastal fleet will begin on the first day of the major update release. All owners of the VLT-2 pack will immediately gain access to research all of the boats available, as well as receive a unique commemorative decal for participating in the testing. Be sure to pick up the pack yourself, get some crew points and get ready to welcome the new French Coastal fleet tree with well-prepared, seasoned crews! You’ll also be able to get testing access through in-game achievements, which we’ll go through the details a little closer to the release.

VLT-2 Pack

This pack includes
  • VLT-2 (Rank IV, France)
  • 1000 Golden Eagles
  • Premium account for 15 days
  • French Coastal fleet access

29.99
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Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.

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I think you can close it already. No one is interested. But thanks!

How about you fix the game economy for players instead?

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I really wonder what France was drinking (yes, im interested, forget your lame «the 5 naval players are going to be happy» jokes)

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I doubt the 5 naval players want to use Fr*nch anythings.

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I do, just not the coastal ones

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I do, the coastal ones have potential to be interesting (SHERMAN BARGE SHERMAN BARGE)

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My only gripe is that the Free French flag was a pre-order bonus for the VLT-2, not just something included in the pack.

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The P-730 is so nice-looking! I love these ships.

Coastal is my favourite part of naval, I’ll definitely play this tree. :)

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If only the coastal fleet in general wasn’t giga useless, the only progress is your small boat with high ROF guns and maybe torps gets slightly bigger and you have to pay 1mil SL for a 4.3 vehicle. It was always a joke and now you’re trying to make it a main selling point for an update, that’s just sad

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If information posted in other sections hold true their only frigate will be a FNFL River class Frigate (or as for some daft reason this game calls them gunboats).

I’d wish this tree would at least get something like an E50 or later cold war frigate right off the start.

I’m generally excited for these vessels to finally come but tbh the TT I saw on stream is rather lacking in some departments & the BR placements will be very critical for if these vessels are to be effective like the L9059 landing craft or the Arras class Aviso (if that’s above 3.3 it’s DoA in my books especially if with a bluewater spawn).

But also the grind, I’m not forward to this or any tree post 2.01 with the absolutely horrendous economics of these trees & pitiful RP/SL gains for a vessel that’ll cost 200k rp yet get blown up by a 4" HE shell instantly due to hullbreak.

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Coastal forces would be much more useful with some more BR decompression. They are all still far too close to the cruisers and even some BB’s. And/or need some new maps/map changes to allow them to be viable in more situations. I like Naval a lot, but most of the time I try to use my coastal units (either in lower BR matches or 6.0-7.0) I get nuked super fast. It is demoralizing.

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I’d like to extend a big thank you to Gaijin for finally introducing the French coastal fleet. It’s been a long time coming, and many of us are thrilled to see it in the game.

To those who aren’t interested, that’s perfectly fine—everyone has their own preferences. But instead of criticizing, why not focus on the modes and nations you enjoy? Let’s all appreciate the diversity the game offers and let others enjoy what they love.

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You are aware that these are not exclusive development choices, right?
The 3D modellers won’t be the ones making a new gamemode or changing the economy of the game…

In any case, the dev team is working on multiple things at the same time throughtout the year, over the span of multiple updates.

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That’s irrelevant: the developpers are not focused on a single task; there is a different team for naval, a different team for air, etc. and obviously, for the economy.

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4.0 Coastal La Combattante to serve alongside 4.0 Bluewater La Combattante.

Anyone see the potential for problems!?!

Hope the PC-730 hull number is used when released as it was absent in the tree used during the Dec stream.

I wouldn’t get too excited about it having missiles considering the SS-11 isn’t exactly going to make a AA god considering the short range (~3k). Did you know the same boat also tested Exocets…?..now that’s an idea for the future!

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Will be my exclusive ship preference lol

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I doubt they will lay off the Naval dev team for your wishes. They already have a base economy team that works on it throughout the year, it just takes a long time for changes to be made (we don’t have all the data to judge correctly).

Anyways, please stay on topic. This is the French coastal Fleet post.

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I totally agree.

But, about AA capabilities of SS-11, it is not really needed; there isn’t as much airplanes in this gamemode (on RB) sadly.

Another thing I would like adress to the team is that I’m really surprised you add as much torpedo boats (because French forces haven’t a lot of them) but I don’t see any of the numerous gunboat/frigate with 90/100mm main caliber guns…

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It’s aboat damn time!

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I play mostly NAB and planes can be a real menace around that BR…i know because I am sometimes that side of evil. SS11 pales when compared to the RIM-24 on the Douglas and I doubt there will be mnay opportunities to use it vs other boats. I expect what you’ll end up with is a slow, subpar 40mm gunboat with a gimmick added.

But staying positive…finally a French coastal tree even if I question some of the capabilities/BRs!

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I really want to be excited about this as a “French main”, but coastal is so awful right now.
Je ne peux pas le faire.

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