Kind of a wishlist, kind of a suggestion.
Basically, I made a version of the French Bluewater Navy tech tree that includes the vessels I think would be needed to make it “complete” or at least comparable in number to some of the other tech trees.
What do you all think is missing/could be added?
Explanation of choices
I have rearranged the layout of the vessels in the tech tree to have a more logical progression. I’ve made the two lines more distinct by dividing them between “Heavy” and “Fast” surface combatant lines, where “Heavy” line ships generally focus on having more guns and “Fast” line ships generally have more speed or AA armament (that’s why I swapped Lorraine and Bretagne’s lines, for example).
Also starting in Rank 1, all of the imported destroyers (La Combattante, Kleber, Marceau, and Guichen) form a sub-tree, while the large contre-torpilleurs form an opposite sub-tree in the second line.
The ships I chose to add (mostly) have counterparts in other tech trees:
- Surcouf (D621) is an immediate postwar destroyer, similar to the Spokoinyy.
- Duquesne is an early heavy cruiser, similar to Furutaka or Northampton, but with essentially zero armor.
- De Grasse (1946) is an immediate postwar anti-air cruiser, very similar in layout to the Atlanta
- Algérie is a more advanced heavy cruiser design with a balance of armor and speed, plus improved anti-aircraft armament.
- La Galissonnière is a more advanced light cruiser design that directly improves upon Emile Bertin.
- Danton is a pre-dreadnought battleship with a high-caliber secondary battery. If Ikoma and Kurama can be added, so can this. Plus, French pre-dreadnoughts are so iconic-looking!
- Duperré (1972) has no real equivalent in-game right now except maybe Bravy. It’s an early postwar destroyer with four Exocet guided missiles. No other ship has such powerful ASMs in-game, but its supply is limited and its armor and armament are otherwise kind of weak so I think it fits into 6.0? Mostly I added it because Rank V needs any help it can get.
- Normadie is a super-dreadnought with 14-inch guns like Lorraine and Bretagne but it uses quadruple turrets to add more firepower. It was laid down so by WT’s rules it should be OK to add.
- You all know about Dunkerque and Strasbourg, I don’t think I need to explain them. Like Lorraine and Bretagne, these two members of the same class are in different lines due to the differences between them, with Strasbourg being more armored and slightly slower and Dunkerque being faster.
- Rank VII is purely speculative but seems reasonable following Gaijin’s rules. Of all of France’s fast battleship designs, only these three were laid down, so only these three would be eligible for inclusion.
